Preventive
[prɪ'ventɪv] or [pri'vɛntɪv]
Definition
(noun.) remedy that prevents or slows the course of an illness or disease; 'the doctor recommended several preventatives'.
(adj.) preventing or contributing to the prevention of disease; 'preventive medicine'; 'vaccines are prophylactic'; 'a prophylactic drug' .
(adj.) tending to prevent or hinder .
Editor: Samantha--From WordNet
Definition
(a.) Going before; preceding.
(a.) Tending to defeat or hinder; obviating; preventing the access of; as, a medicine preventive of disease.
(n.) That which prevents, hinders, or obstructs; that which intercepts access; in medicine, something to prevent disease; a prophylactic.
Edited by Enrico
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. Prophylactic.
n. Prophylactic.
Edited by Davy
Examples
- They carry their preventive with them; they sweat and fumigate all the day long. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- Happiness is the cure--a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- In printing, gum is added to the water with which the stone is moistened, as an additional preventive of the ink adhering to those parts not drawn upon. Frederick C. Bakewell. Great Facts.
- This repulsive pillow was her especial property, being used as a weapon of defense, a barricade, or a stern preventive of too much slumber. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women.
- Give a tablespoonful daily in feed; as a preventive, give twice a week. William K. David. Secrets of Wise Men, Chemists and Great Physicians.
- The remedies, preventive and curative, follow: 1. Benjamin Franklin. Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.
- None of the sheep that had been given the preventive treatment died from the crucial inocu lation; while all those succumbed which had not received previou s treatment. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- Pasteur's preventive inoculation for anthrax was tested under dramatic circumstances at Melun in June, 1881. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
Checked by Hillel