Protective
adjectiveServing to guard or shield someone or something from harm or loss.
How to spell protective
10 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce protective
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does protective mean?
- adjectiveServing to guard or shield someone or something from harm or loss.
Protective in a sentence
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The phone came with a protective case to prevent scratches.
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Workers wore protective goggles in the laboratory.
Where does protective come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word descends from the Latin verb protegere, meaning 'to cover in front' or 'to shield', formed from pro 'in front' and tegere 'to cover'. That same tegere root, which literally meant to roof or cover something over, also gave English the words 'detect', 'integument', and even 'tile' and 'thatch' through related forms. The Latin past participle protectus produced 'protect' in English in the fifteenth century, and the adjective 'protective', describing anything that shields or guards, followed by the seventeenth century. The spelling keeps the hard 'c' of the Latin tect element, so the trap for writers is the unstressed ending: it is -ive, not -ave or -uv, and the middle keeps the original 'tect' intact.
How the word is built
- pro- (in front of)
- tect (cover, from Latin tegere 'to cover')
- -ive (adjective suffix: tending to)
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