PREVENTIVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Preventive

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/prɪvˈɛntɪv/ /privˈɛntɪv/ /prɪvˈɛnɪv/ /privˈɛnɪv/ Listen

adjective

Preventive adj.

Going before; preceding. (Obs.) "Any previous counsel or preventive understanding."

Tending to defeat or hinder; obviating; preventing the access of; as, a medicine preventive of disease. "Physic is either curative or preventive."

Preventive service, the duty performed by the armed police in guarding the coast against smuggling. (Eng)

noun

Preventive n. That which prevents, hinders, or obstructs; that which intercepts access; in medicine, something to prevent disease; a prophylactic.

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Etymology of 'Preventive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Preventive" Quotes from Famous Books

... answered shortly. "She was all right when we started, and never better in her life; but, after dinner, she drank half a wineglass of salt water, and the natural result has been disaster. I understand some fool urged her to try this as a preventive of mal-de-mer. Her mother thinks it must have been a coarse practical joke, and is going to speak to the Captain about it. I wouldn't be the man who prescribed that insane dose for ...

— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... and grisly reminiscence are the neat dwelling-house and the store of the Honourable Mr. Sybille Boyle, so named from a ship and from her captain, R.N., who served in the preventive squadron about 1824. He is an unofficial member of Council and a marked exception to the rule of the 'Liberateds.' Everybody has a good word to say of him. The establishment is the regular colonial, ...

— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.--Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... fear of contracting the malaria fever had induced us to seek the shelter of the shade: but it is too early in the season to have much reasonable fear of this insidious enemy; yet, he added, this bottle which you may have observed here at my breast, I carry about with me, as a supposed preventive of the effects of malaria, and as far as my experience, a very limited one, however, has gone, it is effectual. I ventured to ask him what the bottle might contain, as such a benefit ought to be made known ...

— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... due to a large extent to medicine. Those regions are all extremely malarial. The people who are ordered there are afraid of being infected long before they start on their journey. They begin taking preventive quinine and arsenic, which renders them most irritable and ill-tempered; the solitude preys upon them, and they add to the poisoning from medicine the evil effects of excessive drinking. Add again to this that few men can manage to be brave for a long period ...

— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... Barbadoes,—some strange sickness or other. Adsbud! He would not buy from the lot the master landed; had they been white, they had showed like spectres! September was the worst month of the year. He did not find Mr. Haward in looks now. Best consult Dr. Contesse, though indeed he himself had a preventive of fever which never failed. First he bled; then to so much of ...

— Audrey • Mary Johnston

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