Prevention

How to spell prevention

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prevention

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prevention mean?

1. nounThe act of stopping something from happening or arising.

Prevention in a sentence

• The clinic focuses on the prevention of disease through early screening.

• Regular maintenance is the best prevention against costly breakdowns.

Where does prevention come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Prevention comes from the Latin praeventio, a noun built on the verb praevenire, which literally meant 'to come before' or 'to get ahead of someone'. That verb joined prae, meaning 'before', with venire, meaning 'to come', so the original sense was about arriving first or anticipating an event. In its earliest English uses, around the 1500s, prevention could even mean acting in advance to help someone, almost a kindly anticipation, before it settled into today's meaning of stopping something from happening. English took the word in through French from the Latin, which is why the spelling keeps the Latin vent root intact. That same venire root sits inside many familiar relatives such as 'event', 'invent', and 'convene', and recognising the pre- plus vent structure is the surest way to remember the spelling.

How the word is built

• pre- (before)
• vent (come, from Latin venire)
• -ion (noun suffix)