What does prevention mean?
Word: Prevention
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Prevention means stopping something bad, such as an illness or an accident, from happening.
Synonyms: avoidance
How do you spell prevention?
Syllables: pre - ven - tion
Tricky part: The ending sounds like shun. Because prevent ends in t, the noun ends in tion, not sion.
Watch out for: prevension, preventation, prevenshun
Memory tip: Prevent already ends in t. Keep that t when the word turns into a noun, and the t gives you tion.
Idioms and Phrases
- prevention is better than cure: it is wiser to stop a problem than to fix it later Example: "Grandma makes us wash our hands before meals because prevention is better than cure."
Prevention in a sentence
Example 1: Fire prevention week teaches students how to keep the school safe from fires.
Example 2: Brushing twice a day helps in the prevention of tooth decay.
Example 3: The town spent money on flood prevention after last year's rains.
Fun Fact
Vaccination is a form of prevention: thanks to vaccines, the World Health Organization declared smallpox wiped out across the world in 1980.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Connection
Choose the synonym of the word:
prevention
a) protection
b) warning
c) damage
d) treatment
Show answer
a) protection. Prevention protects you before trouble starts; treatment comes after.
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the incorrectly spelt word:
a) privention
b) invention
c) direction
d) attention
Show answer
a) privention. The word begins with pre, as in prevent.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
Our school held a talk on the prevantion of food waste during the holiday season.
a) season
b) waste
c) prevantion
d) school
Show answer
c) prevantion. The middle is vent, as in event and invent.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which action is an example of prevention?
a) carrying an umbrella on a cloudy day
b) drying your clothes after getting wet
c) mopping the floor after a spill
d) looking for a lost key
Show answer
a) carrying an umbrella on a cloudy day
2. A sign at the beach says 'Prevention of littering'. It asks people to:
a) pick up all the litter later
b) report litter to the guards
c) stop litter from being dropped
d) drop litter only in the sand
Show answer
c) stop litter from being dropped
