To prevent that event from becoming a catastrophe, first responders will join members of the public in rehearsals that involve communication, evacuation, search and rescue, and other scenarios. We make it a dollar cheaper to ship the sweaters, and then increase the tariff by two dollars to prevent the sweaters from being shipped. She would go over the accident again and again in her mind, wishing that she could somehow have prevented it.
A block in the pipe was preventing the water from coming through. Prevent, anticipate, forestall mean to deal with beforehand. Prevent implies taking advance measures against something possible or probable.
See examples of prevent used in a sentence. To prevent is to stop something effectually by forestalling action and rendering it impossible: To prevent the sending of a message.
Definition of prevent verb in oxford advanced learner's dictionary. The verb prevent means "to keep something from happening," like when you use a complicated password to prevent hackers from accessing your account.