preventive
/pɹɪˈvɛntɪv/
preventive adjective: preventing, hindering, or acting as an obstacle to.
Adjective
preventive (comparative more preventive, superlative most preventive)
- Preventing, hindering, or acting as an obstacle to.
- ...and I sometimes think whether, like the ancient king, it would not be prudent to make an offering to destiny, and throw my set of emeralds into the lake." Emily could not but deprecate the emeralds being destined to any such preventive service;...1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter X, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 146
- Carried out to deter military aggression.
- Slowing the development of an illness; prophylactic.
- Physick is either curative or preventive.1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC
- Going before; preceding.
- Any previous counsel or preventive understanding.1678, Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe
Noun
preventive (plural preventives)
- A thing that prevents, hinders, or acts as an obstacle to.
- Dogs should be warmly but airily housed; heartily, but not heatingly, fed — old Indian meal, mixed with oatmeal, suppawn, is the best general food, with a small quantity of salt, which is a preventive against worms […]1856, Henry William Herbert, The Complete Manual for Young Sportsmen
- A thing that slows the development of an illness.
- A good preventive against heart disease is a healthy lifestyle.
- Eaten with sugar yaourt is very palatable and refreshing in warm weather and is said to be a preventive of fever.1885, Cyprus guide and directory, page 82
- A contraceptive, especially a condom.
preventive meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam
preventive in Hindi
- निवारक
preventive in Tamil
- தடுப்புச் செயல், தவிர்ப்பு, தடுத்தல்
preventive in Bengali
- প্রতিরোধমূলক, প্রতিরোধাত্মক
preventive in Malayalam
- പരിഹാരമുള്ള, തടുക്കുന്ന, നിരോധിക്കുന്ന
More languagesFewer languages
- preventive in Kannada
- ತಡೆಗಟ್ಟುವ, ಮುಂಜಾಗ್ರತೆಯ, ನಿರೋಧಕ, ಮುನ್ನೆಚ್ಚರಿಕೆಯ
- preventive in Punjabi
- ਨਿਵਾਰਕ
- preventive in Gujarati
- નિવારક, નિવારણાત્મક
- preventive in Odia
- ପ୍ରତିରୋଧାତ୍ମକ
- preventive in Nepali
- निवारक
- preventive in Tagalog
- pang-apula
- preventive in Arabic
- اِحْتِرَازِيّ iḥtirāziyy, رَدْعِيّ radʕiyy, وِقَائِيّ wiqāʔiyy
Examples of preventive in a sentence
- The focus for preventive actions is to avoid creating nonconformances, but also commonly includes improvements in efficiency.
- The German war against Poland initiated by Hitler was justified as a preventive war by Carl Schmitt, German jurist and philosopher.
- Richard Isaacson, a preventive neurologist at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases of Florida.
Synonyms of preventive
Forms of preventive
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more preventive |
| superlative | most preventive |
| alternative form | preventative |
| Noun | |
| plural | preventives |
Origin of preventive
Borrowed from New Latin praeventīvus. Equivalent to prevent + -ive.
Words formed from preventive
Phrases with preventive
Questions about preventive
- What does preventive mean?
- Preventive means preventing, hindering, or acting as an obstacle to.
- What is preventive in Hindi?
- Preventive in Hindi is निवारक. See Preventive meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is preventive?
- Preventive can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce preventive?
- Preventive is pronounced /pɹɪˈvɛntɪv/.
Words near preventive in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: preventive (page history and authors); preventive (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); preventive (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); preventive (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); preventive (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); preventive (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); preventive (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); preventive (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); preventive (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); preventive (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q7979-Pink Bee-preventive.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vininn126-preventive.wav.
Cite this entry: “preventive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/preventive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.