Meaning & use
preventive
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Meanings
adjectivebefore a noun
Meant to stop something bad, such as illness, damage or crime, from happening in the first place.
Grammar: Usually comes before a noun: preventive care, not the care is preventive.
Patterns
- preventive measures against something
- a preventive approach to something
Regular checkups are an important form of preventive care.
The city took preventive measures before the river rose.
A preventive dose of the medicine is given to travelers.
nouncountableformal
A medicine, device or action that prevents something, especially disease.
Grammar: Takes a plural and is usually followed by against: a preventive against malaria.
Patterns
- a preventive against something
Garlic was once believed to be a preventive against plague.
The nurse suggested a simple preventive for the infection.
Vaccines are the strongest preventives we have against many diseases.
Word forms
| plural | preventives |
|---|
Common combinations
- preventive care
- Preventive care costs less than treating advanced illness.
- preventive measures
- Staff must take preventive measures to stop food spoiling.
- preventive maintenance
- The factory schedules preventive maintenance every month.
- preventive medicine
- She works in preventive medicine and focuses on healthy habits.
- preventive action
- Preventive action now will avoid flooding next spring.
Synonyms and how they differ
- preventative
- Preventative is an equally correct variant with the same meaning, though some writers see it as slightly clumsier because of the extra syllable.
- precautionary
- Precautionary stresses taking care against a possible risk, while preventive stresses stopping a specific problem from occurring.
- protective
- Protective describes something that shields from harm, but it need not stop the problem from starting, which preventive implies.
- prophylactic
- Prophylactic is a medical and technical word for something that prevents disease, and sounds far more clinical than preventive.
Opposites
Word family
- prevent verb
- to stop something happening
- prevention noun
- the act of preventing
- preventable adjective
- able to be stopped
- preventively adverb
- in a way that prevents
Commonly confused: preventive or preventable?
preventive vs preventable
Preventable describes a problem that can be stopped, whereas preventive describes the action or measure that stops it.
Practice
Which word completes the sentence? 'Many deaths from this disease are ___ with early vaccination.'
Choose one answer.
Preventable describes a problem that can be stopped, and it fits after are. Preventive describes a measure, not the problem, and would not fit this sentence.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “preventive”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.