Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To keep from happening: took steps to prevent the strike.
- v. To keep (someone) from doing something; impede: prevented us from winning.
- v. Archaic To anticipate or counter in advance.
- v. Archaic To come before; precede.
- v. To present an obstacle: There will be a picnic if nothing prevents.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To go before; be earlier than; anticipate; forestall.
- To take previous measures against; hence, to frustrate; disappoint; evade; escape.
- To hinder from action by the opposition of obstacles; impede; restrain; check; preclude: generally followed by from.
- To keep from existing or occurring; render impossible.
- Synonyms To preclude, bar, debar.
- To come beforehand; come before others, or before the usual time.
- To interpose a hindrance, especially an insurmountable obstacle; interpose an effectual check; hinder.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To go before; to precede; hence, to go before as a guide; to direct.
- v. obsolete To be beforehand with; to anticipate.
- v. To intercept; to hinder; to frustrate; to stop; to thwart.
- v. obsolete To come before the usual time.
WordNet 3.0
- v. keep from happening or arising; make impossible
- v. stop (someone or something) from doing something or being in a certain state
Etymologies
- From Middle English preventen ("anticipate"), from Latin praeventus, perfect passive participle of praeveniō ("anticipate"), from prae ("before") + veniō ("come"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English preventen, to anticipate, from Latin praevenīre, praevent- : prae-, pre- + venīre, to come; see gwā- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“So the best way to prevent is to stop people from feeding them with bread, chips and other stuff.”
“Good men are afraid of sin, and are in care to prevent it; and the most effectual way to prevent is to hide God's word in our hearts, that we may answer every temptation, as our Master did, with, It is written, may oppose God's precepts to the dominion of sin, his promises to its allurements, and his threatenings to its menaces.”
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon)
“Seeing your country change around you in ways that neither you nor your elected representatives can prevent is frightening, especially if you are older, white, and conservative by nature.”
The Huffington Post: Gary Hart: Fear Itself, and Why We Should Fear it
“The NCVYS chief executive, Susanne Rauprich, said: By failing to take a comprehensive view of the cumulative impact that the cuts agenda places on young people, we are risking unintended consequences that could in the long term prevent a large number of young people, and in particular those that are already disadvantaged, from realising their true potential.”
The Guardian: 'Savage' cuts to youth spending could rob a generation of chances
“The short slogans repeated over and over again prevent everyone, including the politicians holding the town hall meetings, from being able to have a discission or express a complex view point.”
“Just as a football game is not decided by how hard a team, that loses a game by 10 points, fought back at the end of the game when the other team was in prevent defense, the Democratic nomination is not decided on the basis of who was able to make up some ground by resorting to extremely negative campaign tactics.”
“James Fellows: That a man who himself served in an ill-advised war should now lose a son to a war the father tried to prevent is almost too painful to contemplate.”
“Unknown to them, they're not the first ones there, and the suicide they're trying to prevent is part of a game played by forces more powerful than they imagine.”
“The easiest poverty to prevent is poverty that is close by.”
“Not only did Oklahoma's win prevent Sugar Bowl champion Miami from gaining”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘prevent’.
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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EU Buzz - ALL words and expressions
A combined list of
1. EU Buzz - single words
2. EU Buzz - collocations
3. EU Buzz - the 100 most active
collocation constituentsabsorption capacity, absorption rate, acceding country, accession candidate, accession countries, accession country, accession criteria, accession cycle, accession negotia..., accession partner..., accession priorities, accession treaty and 2650 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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EN - newSPEAK
Buzzwords of our time
actionable, administrivia, advermation, agreeance, backbone provider, back-sourcing, baked in, bandwidth, barn raising, Barneyware, belly-buttons, Below Zeros and 1076 more...
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Ayumi G3
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 128 more...
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webdev
random webdev lingo used primarily in computer programming.
( open list, randomness, technical jargon, geek speak )
more:
ajax, user, admin, frontend, backend, database, sql, protocol, call, dom, layout, ui and 439 more... -
EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...health, follow, condition, meeting, minister, beginning, chapter, information, language, remain, covered, respect and 2614 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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Idk, I like these words.
ethereality, apathy, consideration, soul, safety, lone wolf, darkness, pressure, ocean, few, collapse, believe and 155 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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Simple Business Words
Simple useful basic business words
observation, suggestion, condition, situation, action, attention, caution, innovation, position, adoption, inflated, consideration and 82 more...
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go-come words
come, welcome, venire, advent, venue, adventitious, adventure, avenue, circumvent, contravene, convene, convenient and 87 more...
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Block (verb)
Words meaning block (verb).
obstruct, occlude, obstipate, impede, impedite, forbar, prevent, preclude, interrupt
Tweets
Looking for tweets for prevent.
sobriquet It has two meanings, depending on the time period of usage: to make something happen; to keep something from happening. An ironic semantic drift.
-Rich Coffeen, The Discipling of Mytra. Aug 14, 2009