Verb

(shunn)

To avoid, especially persistently.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington

, title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}

To escape (a threatening evil, an unwelcome task etc).

To screen, hide.

To shove, push.

Verb

(en verb)

To stop; to keep (from happening).

I brushed my teeth to prevent them from going yellow.

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=October 1 , author=Tom Fordyce , title=Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Scotland must now hope Georgia produce a huge upset and beat Argentina by at least eight points in Sunday's final Pool B match to prevent them failing to make the last eight for the first time in World Cup history.}}

* 1897 , Henry James, What Maisie Knew :

‘I think you must be mad, and she shall not have a glimpse of it while I'm here to prevent !’

(obsolete) To come before; to precede.

* Bible, 1 Thess. iv. 15

We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

* Book of Common Prayer

We pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us.

* Prior

Then had I come, preventing Sheba's queen.

(obsolete) To outdo, surpass.

* 1596 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , IV.i:

With that he put his spurres vnto his steed, / With speare in rest, and toward him did fare, / Like shaft out of a bow preuenting speed.

(obsolete) To be beforehand with; to anticipate.

* Alexander Pope

their ready guilt preventing thy commands