Precede, anticipate. (Latin prœ-venio, to go before.) And as what goes before us may hinder us, so prevent means to hinder or keep back.
“My eyes prevent the night watches.”—Psalm cxix. 148.
“Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings.”—Common Prayer Book.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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