prevention
Americannoun
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the act of preventing; effectual hindrance.
-
a preventive.
This serum is a prevention against disease.
noun
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the act of preventing
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a hindrance, obstacle, or impediment
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of prevention
1520–30; < Late Latin praeventiōn- (stem of praeventiō ) a forestalling. See prevent, -ion
Explanation
When an action stops something from happening, like assigning extra teachers to watch a playground during recess to prevent bullying, it's called prevention. The noun prevention comes up most often when people are trying to keep something bad in check, like crime, disease, or forest fires. Educating kids about nutrition is one form of obesity prevention, for example, and lowering speed limits can help with accident prevention. The word prevent is at the root of prevention, and it comes from the Latin praeventus, "anticipate or hinder."
Vocabulary lists containing prevention
Word Generation Weekly - Series 2
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Chemical Engineering
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: pre-
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The findings indicate that a single global approach to dementia prevention is unlikely to be effective everywhere.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 13, 2026
"That has real implications for how we design prevention strategies and interventions, because some things are more consistent across places than we might expect."
From Science Daily ● Jul. 13, 2026
Social media had increased access to health information and the trends were being driven by a "desire for emotional stability, weight loss and disease prevention", a spokesperson added.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
"The situation will be kept under review and the ward will reopen in line with infection prevention and control guidance when it is safe to do so," it added.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
It had launched programs for women’s literacy and for the prevention of AIDS, and reduced the rate of HIV transmission from mothers to babies to 4 percent—about half the current rate in the United States.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
U.S. taxpayers invested billions of dollars in the effort and were able, until recently, to access treatments and preventions for the virus without paying out-of-pocket for them.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 7, 2023
"Epidemic preventions have been lifted...COVID-19 testing sites are mostly being dismantled... So, because right now in Chaoyang district cases are quite high, it is better to stock up on some medicines," he said.
From Reuters ● Dec. 7, 2022
DuckDuckGo CEO Gabe Weinberg said at the time that the reason for it was a search syndication agreement with Microsoft, and that more updates on third-party tracker preventions were coming.
From The Verge ● Aug. 5, 2022
As a budding health reporter, I tried to learn everything I could about Alzheimer's and wrote about new research on preventions and treatments that everyone wanted to believe had potential.
From Salon ● Feb. 13, 2022
These preventions he accomplished, though, without once really weakening, and was safe at a good distance from the tempting gate when the crowd within began to shout as the horses were brought out.
From In Old Kentucky by Marshall, Edward
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
