Word.ws English Dictionary

prevene

prevene verb: to precede (come before) or anticipate.

Verb

prevene (third-person singular simple present prevenes, present participle prevening, simple past and past participle prevened)

  1. (obsolete) To precede (come before) or anticipate.
    • If Thy indulgent Care / Had not preven'd, among unbody'd Shades / I now had wander'd1708, [John Philips], “Book I”, in Cyder. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 43
  2. (obsolete) To hinder, stall, or prevent.

Forms of prevene

third-person singular presentprevenes
present participleprevening
past participleprevened
pastprevened

Origin of prevene

From French prévenir, Latin praevenire. See prevent.

Questions about prevene

What does prevene mean?
Prevene means to precede (come before) or anticipate.
What part of speech is prevene?
Prevene is a verb.
What is the past tense of prevene?
The past tense of prevene is prevened.

Words near prevene in the dictionary

  1. prevelars
  2. prevenance
  3. prevenances
  4. prevenancy
  5. prevenception
  6. prevene
  7. prevened
  8. prevenes
  9. prevenge
  10. prevenience
  11. preveniences

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prevene (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “prevene.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prevene. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.