Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell prevent

hear itpre·vent/prɪ'vɛnt/verbRules and real life

What it means: To stop something from happening.

In a sentence: Washing your hands can help prevent you from catching a cold.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as preavent or prevant.

Same family: prevention, preventive, prevented, preventing, preventable. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Prevent” comes from Latin roots meaning “to come before.” It originally had the sense of going ahead of something, and over time its meaning shifted to our modern idea of stopping something before it happens.

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

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