Feb 25, 2022 · Quick summary. In most contexts, preventive and preventative are essentially interchangeable—they’re used to mean the same thing. This includes when describing the terms they’re most commonly encountered with, such as care, maintenance, and measures. Preventive has traditionally been more commonly used, particularly in medical contexts, but preventative …

Some writers prefer the word preventive over its synonym preventative because it’s a more grammatically correct formation. Preventive, which appeared in the early 17th century, combines the word prevent (“to stop”) with the suffix -ive (“quality of”) to describe something that has the ability to stop something else.

When to Use Preventive. Although both forms are linguistically valid, preventive is clearly the preferred choice in popular usage and in formal and professional writing. As the below graph shows, preventive is used at rate approximately eight times to that of preventative.

Apr 30, 2012 · Preventive is an adjective. E.g. “Take preventive action and wear a helmet.”. Preventative is a noun. E.g. “A helmet is a preventative.”. Or, “He places a preventive plug in the hole, to prevent water from leaking into the room, just in case it rains. The plug is now a preventative”. This seems simple enough to me.

The one clear difference between the two words is that the shorter one, preventive, is used much more frequently than preventative, possibly three or four times as much, depending on which sources you check. The bottom line is, you should feel free to use either one of these words to describe something that stops something bad from happening.

Aug 01, 2012 · Difference Between Preventive and Preventative • Preventive and preventative have similar meaning and both refer to something that is used to prevent the onset of... • However, preventive is more common of the two words. • Preventive is used mostly as an adjective, and when the word required is a ...

Feb 25, 2014 · Preventive Versus Preventative. In my book The Grammar Devotional, I wrote that it is OK to use preventative, but I got this e-mail message from a reader named Karissa: “The word ‘preventative’ is one of my biggest pet peeves. It has always been my firm belief that ‘preventative’ is simply incorrect. So you can imagine my dismay when ...