as in averting
to keep from happening by taking action in advance
a lot of problems would have been prevented if we'd just prepared better
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Recent Examples of preventing
Snow said crews contained the flames to the refinery and were focusing on preventing the fire from spreading.
—
Christina Shaw, FOXNews.com, 3 Oct. 2025
The White House insists the law protects taxpayers by preventing undocumented immigrants from getting government health benefits — but such individuals were already barred from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, exchanges.
—Scott Neuman, NPR, 3 Oct. 2025
Further investigation led to arrest During preliminary investigations, Cadena-Marquez told officers the Elantra was stopped in the main freeway lanes with no lights on, preventing him from seeing it, police said in the release.
—Shambhavi Rimal, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 2 Oct. 2025
Police said a quick-thinking witness closed and locked the door of the synagogue and called the police, preventing the attacker from entering and killing a larger number of people.
—Brady Knox, The Washington Examiner, 2 Oct. 2025
Roger Wood—Getty Images My father, Sayyed Ahang Kowsar, was a scientist, who worked on preventing desertification in Iran by using floodwater to recharge aquifers since the early 1970s.
—Nik Kowsar, Time, 2 Oct. 2025
The two Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 limited the power of the House of Lords, preventing it from amending or blocking laws relating to budgeting.
—Garret Martin, The Conversation, 2 Oct. 2025
According to the reseachers, this unified multirate architecture improves responsiveness and stability by preventing faster subsystems from being held back by slower ones and embedding the jets’ dynamics directly into the prediction horizon.
—Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 1 Oct. 2025
The top challenges that are preventing wider deployment were concerns around compliance, legal or privacy issues (56%); lack of technical resources or IT support (53%); and poor data quality, which resulted in the AI agent’s output not being useful (48%).
—John Kell, Fortune, 1 Oct. 2025
Christina Shaw, FOXNews.com, 3 Oct. 2025
The White House insists the law protects taxpayers by preventing undocumented immigrants from getting government health benefits — but such individuals were already barred from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, exchanges.
—Scott Neuman, NPR, 3 Oct. 2025
Further investigation led to arrest During preliminary investigations, Cadena-Marquez told officers the Elantra was stopped in the main freeway lanes with no lights on, preventing him from seeing it, police said in the release.
—Shambhavi Rimal, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 2 Oct. 2025
Police said a quick-thinking witness closed and locked the door of the synagogue and called the police, preventing the attacker from entering and killing a larger number of people.
—Brady Knox, The Washington Examiner, 2 Oct. 2025
Roger Wood—Getty Images My father, Sayyed Ahang Kowsar, was a scientist, who worked on preventing desertification in Iran by using floodwater to recharge aquifers since the early 1970s.
—Nik Kowsar, Time, 2 Oct. 2025
The two Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 limited the power of the House of Lords, preventing it from amending or blocking laws relating to budgeting.
—Garret Martin, The Conversation, 2 Oct. 2025
According to the reseachers, this unified multirate architecture improves responsiveness and stability by preventing faster subsystems from being held back by slower ones and embedding the jets’ dynamics directly into the prediction horizon.
—Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 1 Oct. 2025
The top challenges that are preventing wider deployment were concerns around compliance, legal or privacy issues (56%); lack of technical resources or IT support (53%); and poor data quality, which resulted in the AI agent’s output not being useful (48%).
—John Kell, Fortune, 1 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for preventing
Verb
-
Resorting to an omnibus is now common, even though it is reviled by many rank-and-file lawmakers who resent being deprived of the ability to resist individual spending provisions without derailing the sole vehicle for averting a shutdown.—
Lazaro Gamio,
New York Times,
29 Sep. 2025
-
Democrats, Republicans and administration officials left a meeting at the White House pointing fingers at each other and seemingly no closer to averting a government shutdown at the end of Tuesday.—
The Hill staff,
The Hill,
29 Sep. 2025
Verb
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But the Republic never received any further communication about this request or any data, precluding progress.—
Joan Meiners,
AZCentral.com,
29 Sep. 2025
-
For example, some Americans may not have a primary care doctor, thus precluding them from getting a prescription for the Covid shot.—
Omer Awan,
Forbes.com,
7 Sep. 2025
Verb
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The cubs were taught essential survival skills—including hunting and avoiding humans—to get ready to be reintroduced to the wild.—
Maria Azzurra Volpe,
MSNBC Newsweek,
1 Oct. 2025
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The change also aligned with the WHO’s guidelines for naming diseases, which emphasize avoiding names that are offensive to cultural groups, or that negatively impact trade, tourism, or animal welfare.—
Dr. Nikki Romanik,
Time,
1 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Preventing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/preventing. Accessed 7 Oct. 2025.
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