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deter
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
deter
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
attack
▪ The main aim of cruise missiles is to deter an attack.
▪ Field experiments have proved that this startle display does indeed deter attacks from small birds.
▪ I very much hope that in the future that will deter similar attacks which are a blot on our country.
people
▪ There were warning signs now to deter people from going farther.
▪ But your job is not to deter people from having meetings, merely to ensure that the necessary ones are fully productive.
▪ How far does the knowledge that the state will tax away high salaries deter people from entering high-earning and demanding jobs?
▪ Mr Waddington believes that the death penalty would offer the public protection in deterring some people from murder.
▪ Attempts to toughen the system by introducing a compulsory voucher system have done little to deter people.
▪ They also said they deterred other people from visiting the town.
■ VERB
design
▪ The gunfire that rattled from the house was not designed to deter.
▪ Punitive damages are designed to punish and deter misconduct.
fail
▪ If this fails to deter the enemy, the possum promptly drops dead.
▪ Indeed, even colossal traffic jams, for all their cost in wasted time, have failed to deter motorists.
▪ The snobberies of the members and officers of the club intimidate but fail to deter Anton.
seem
▪ None of this seems to have deterred the stallholders of central Bangkok.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ It is not clear whether the death penalty deters crime.
▪ The new alarm system should deter car thieves.
▪ The unpleasant taste the drug produces is used to deter alcoholics from drinking.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ After all, how can it deter when few are noticing?
▪ But true salesmen are unlikely to be deterred by mere realism.
▪ Furthermore, there is great danger that people from such backgrounds will be deterred from applying for educational courses in the future.
▪ Neither was deterred by the fact that the inevitable visceral animus they are fueling among voters has five more months to fester.
▪ Punitive damages are designed to punish and deter misconduct.
▪ Set too low, it would do little to deter speculation in the event of a crisis.
▪ Their very oddity deterred him from doing so.
▪ This path isolates me well from casual visitors, but true friends are not deterred.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Deter

Deter \De*ter"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Deterred; p. pr. & vb. n. Deterring.] [L. deterrere; de + terrere to frighten, terrify. See Terror.] To prevent by fear; hence, to hinder or prevent from action by fear of consequences, or difficulty, risk, etc.
--Addison.

Potent enemies tempt and deter us from our duty.
--Tillotson.

My own face deters me from my glass.
--Prior.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
deter

1570s, from Latin deterrere "to frighten from, discourage from," from de- "away" (see de-) + terrere "frighten" (see terrible). Deterrent is from 1829.

Wiktionary
deter

vb. 1 (context transitive English) To prevent something from happening. 2 (context transitive English) To persuade someone not to do something; to discourage.

WordNet
deter
  1. v. try to prevent; show opposition to; "We should discourage this practice among our youth" [syn: discourage]

  2. turn away from by persuasion; "Negative campaigning will only dissuade people" [syn: dissuade] [ant: persuade]

  3. [also: deterring, deterred]

Wikipedia
Deter

Verb - To discourage someone from doing something. From the Latin 'deterrere' - "to frighten away".

Deter may refer to:

  • Auguste Deter (1850-1906), first person diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease
  • Deters, surname

Usage examples of "deter".

There is no question that the world would be better off if Saddam did not have these weapons, but the danger is considerably less than if Saddam were allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, which he believes will deter the United States and Israel and thereby would encourage him to engage in the kind of foreign aggression that would be likely to provoke a nuclear crisis.

But ask yourself if you truly are willing to bet your savings, your job, or your life that Saddam Hussein will not use a nuclear weapon or embark on some new aggression in the belief that his nuclear weapons will deter the United States.

In particular, would he act aggressively in the mistaken belief that his nuclear weapons would deter an American or Israeli nuclear response?

Persons are deterred from settling in the neighborhood by the aguish character of the country.

If a feeling of modesty does not deter you from shewing yourself tender, loving, and full of amorous ardour with me in his presence, how could I be ashamed, when, on the contrary, I ought to feel proud of myself?

Finally, seeing that nothing could deter him from going in search of the lovely maiden he had seen, she slipped a ring on his hand, and bade him ride out of town in a certain direction, and dismount under a lime tree, where he would see something marvelous.

Henrietta said merrily that she and his lordship were more likely to come to cuffs than to indulge in a comfortable cose she made no attempt to deter the departure.

The critical assumption of this policy is that Saddam would be deterred by such an American threat even if he possessed nuclear weapons himself.

Saddam has a crude understanding of deterrence logic and has been successfully deterred in the past.

Yet he was deterred from employing chemical and biological weapons against Israel for fear of the much heavier retaliation Israel could mount with its nuclear arsenal.

What this means is that, especially given the difficulty of convincing Saddam beforehand that this was the course the United States would take, it was probably impossible for the United States to have deterred Saddam from invading Kuwait.

Saddam did not use WMD to prevent the rout during the ground phase of Desert Storm, it may be that he was deterred, but it seems at least as likely that he simply was unable to do so.

Even if we discount the unconfirmed CIA report of an attempted BW air strike, the evidence suggests that while Saddam may have been deterred at some level from using WMD tactically against coalition forces, this deterrence was actually quite conditional.

West had no idea existed, and thus they could not have deterred any coalition actions.

Saddam appears to have learned from the Gulf War, as best we understand them, are equally disquieting and indicate that he will not be easily deterred in the future.