Preventive

Quick meaning: Preventive is an adjective meaning Preventing, hindering, or acting as an obstacle to.

Meaning

Preventing, hindering, or acting as an obstacle to.

More Meanings

1. Carried out to deter military aggression.
2. Slowing the development of an illness; prophylactic.
3. A contraceptive, especially a condom.
4. (obsolete) Going before; preceding.
5. (dated) A thing that prevents, hinders, or acts as an obstacle to.
6. (dated) A thing that slows the development of an illness.

Example Sentences

Physick is either curative or preventive.

Any previous counsel or preventive understanding.

Eaten with sugar yaourt is very palatable and refreshing in warm weather and is said to be a preventive of fever.

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 […]

Word Forms

• preventative
• preventives

Synonyms for preventive

Depending on context, synonyms include prophylactic, encumbrance, hindrance, preemptive, deterrent, thwarting.

Antonyms for preventive

Common opposites include permissive.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include deterrent, prohibitory, thwarting, prohibitive, preclusive, obstructive.

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