Preventable

How to spell preventable

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce preventable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does preventable mean?

1. adjectiveAble to be stopped from happening or prevented in advance.

Preventable in a sentence

• The report concluded that most of the accidents were entirely preventable.

• Regular servicing keeps the breakdown firmly in the preventable category.

Where does preventable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the verb 'prevent', which English took in the fifteenth century from the Latin praevenire, meaning literally 'to come before' or 'to anticipate', from prae 'before' and venire 'to come'. In its earliest English use 'prevent' actually meant to act in advance of someone or to get ahead of them, a sense quite different from today's idea of stopping something from happening. By the sixteenth century the meaning had shifted toward hindering or warding off, and the adjective 'preventable' was formed by adding the Latin-derived suffix -able, meaning 'capable of being'. The same venire root that supplies the hidden 'vent' here also turns up in 'convene', 'intervene', and 'avenue', all of which carry the underlying idea of coming. Remembering that buried 'vent' (as in coming before) helps fix the middle of the spelling, while the ending is the plain -able rather than -ible.

How the word is built

• pre- (before)
• vent (from venire: to come)
• -able (capable of being)