Prevention is the stopping of something before it can happen. Crime prevention, prevention is better than cure, preventive measures.
It is far cheaper than any cure and far harder to fund, because nobody can point at the disasters that did not happen. That is the standing problem of every prevention budget, in public health, in flood defence and in policing alike.
1nounpreventionThe stopping of something before it can happen.
“The campaign focuses on the prevention of forest fires during the dry summer.”
prevention is a stopping.
Medieval Latin praeventio comes from praevenire, to come before — prae plus venire, to come.
Medieval Latin
prēventiō
Middle English
prevencion
English, today
prevention
From Middle English prevencion, from Medieval Latin prēventiō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA