Meaning & use
protection
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
The act of keeping someone or something safe from harm, damage or danger.
Grammar: Usually uncountable and followed by from or against: protection from the sun.
Patterns
- protection from something
- protection against something
- under someone's protection
The vaccine gives protection against the virus.
Wear a hat for protection from the sun.
The witness was placed under police protection.
nouncountable or uncountable
Something that shields you from harm, such as a barrier, device or rule.
Grammar: Can be a thing: a protection against fraud.
Patterns
- a protection for something
The thick walls were a good protection against the cold.
Strong passwords are the best protection for your accounts.
The law offers little protection to tenants.
noununcountableinformal
Money paid to criminals so they will not harm your business or property.
Grammar: Usually in a phrase: pay protection.
Patterns
- pay for protection
Shopkeepers were forced to pay protection to the gang.
The police broke up a protection racket in the market.
Word forms
| plural | protections |
|---|
Common combinations
- legal protection
- Workers need legal protection against unfair dismissal.
- provide protection
- The coating provides protection from rust.
- protection from the elements
- The porch offers protection from the elements.
- environmental protection
- Environmental protection laws were strengthened.
- data protection
- Data protection rules apply to every business.
- protection racket
- Officers arrested the men behind the protection racket.
Synonyms and how they differ
- defense
- Defense suggests resisting an attack, while protection also covers general safety from everyday risks.
- shelter
- Shelter means a place or cover from weather or danger, and protection need not be a place at all.
- security
- Security stresses being free from threat over time, whereas protection stresses the act or means of guarding.
- safeguard
- Safeguard is a more formal word for a measure that prevents harm, often a rule or device.
Opposites
Word family
- protect verb
- to keep safe from harm
- protective adjective
- giving or wanting to give protection
- protector noun
- a person or thing that protects
- protectively adverb
- in a way that shields someone
- unprotected adjective
- not shielded from harm
Commonly confused: protection or prevention?
protection vs prevention
Prevention stops something happening in the first place; protection shields you from its effects.
Practice
The new law gives tenants better ___ against unfair rent increases.
Choose one answer.
Protection against something means being guarded from it. Exposure would mean the opposite, and the other nouns do not take against in this meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “protection”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.