Deter
verbTo discourage someone from acting, typically by making the consequences seem unpleasant or risky.
How to spell deter
5 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce deter
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does deter mean?
- verbTo discourage someone from acting, typically by making the consequences seem unpleasant or risky.
Deter in a sentence
-
A visible alarm system can deter most burglars.
-
Higher parking fees are meant to deter drivers from the city centre.
Where does deter come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This word comes from the Latin deterrere, which combined de-, meaning 'away from', with terrere, meaning 'to frighten'. The literal idea was to frighten someone away from doing something, and that sense of discouragement through fear has stayed remarkably stable over the centuries. English adopted it in the middle of the 1500s, keeping the original meaning of putting a person off a course of action. The same terrere root that scares people in deter also lies behind the everyday words 'terror', 'terrify', and 'terrible'. Knowing that the spelling keeps just a single r (unlike the double r in terror) is the useful trap to remember, since the Latin double r was simplified in the English form.
How the word is built
- de- (away, from)
- ter (from Latin terrere: to frighten)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.