Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To keep from happening; avert.
- intransitive verb To keep (a person or thing) from doing something; impede.
- intransitive verb To anticipate or counter in advance.
- intransitive verb To come before; precede.
- intransitive verb To present an obstacle.
from The Century Dictionary.
- 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.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb obsolete To come before the usual time.
- transitive verb obsolete To go before; to precede; hence, to go before as a guide; to direct.
- transitive verb obsolete To be beforehand with; to anticipate.
- transitive verb To intercept; to hinder; to frustrate; to stop; to thwart.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb keep from happening or arising; make impossible
- verb stop (someone or something) from doing something or being in a certain state
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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So the best way to prevent is to stop people from feeding them with bread, chips and other stuff.
EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - Today’s Comic: Bread Trouble 2007
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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) 1721
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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.
'Savage' cuts to youth spending could rob a generation of chances 2011
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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.
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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.
Gary Hart: Fear Itself, and Why We Should Fear it Gary Hart 2010
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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.
Blitzer: Should Clinton's swing state edge be a factor? 2008
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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.
Archive 2007-05-01 2007
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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.
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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.
ccfinlay: Ten Books I'm Reccommending for the Norton Award ccfinlay 2006
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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.
Ten Books I'm Reccommending for the Norton Award sallytuppence 2006
sobriquet commented on the word prevent
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.
August 14, 2009