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deterrent
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
deterrent
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
effective
▪ By the autumn of 1959, the Chiefs of Staff had begun to doubt its viability as an effective deterrent.
▪ It would, in the end, be a far more effective deterrent.
▪ Is he satisfied that an effective deterrent system is in place to prevent their deployment?
▪ Then punish the adulterous man as harshly, for that is just as effective a deterrent as punishing the woman.
▪ Therefore, the designation of specially protected areas is perhaps quite effective as a deterrent.
▪ The most effective deterrent, however, is that simple household substance, vinegar.
▪ Manifestly, we have no effective deterrent for hooligan crime, or we would not be debating the issue.
▪ Britain's credible and effective independent nuclear deterrent is the ultimate guarantee of our security.
independent
▪ Will my right hon. Friend not stint in providing Britain with the best independent deterrent?
▪ Britain's credible and effective independent nuclear deterrent is the ultimate guarantee of our security.
▪ We are the only party unambiguously committed to the preservation and modernisation of our independent nuclear deterrent.
minimum
▪ I told him also that Britain's only strategic weapon would be the minimum deterrent constituted by Trident.
▪ Indeed, his ambition is to move down now to a minimum deterrent.
▪ His idea of a minimum deterrent is to maintain 2,500 warheads.
▪ We will complete the deployment of the next generation of Britain's minimum nuclear deterrent.
nuclear
▪ The nuclear deterrent has been very effective in ensuring the security of the west over the past 40 years.
▪ Only when it comes to the nuclear deterrent or matters of top intelligence-gathering is the short-term commercial approach deliberately shelved.
▪ To that extent, the nuclear deterrent is very good value for money.
▪ That applies even to the minority in the Labour party who believe in the nuclear deterrent.
▪ We will complete the deployment of the next generation of Britain's minimum nuclear deterrent.
■ NOUN
effect
▪ This section begins with a group of contrasts concerning the deterrent effects of markets and liability regimes.
▪ They do not show that punishment has no deterrent effect on offenders, or that no offender is ever deterred.
▪ But they suggest that overall, punishment has other effects which cancel out and even outweigh its deterrent effects.
▪ The deterrent effect of our presence and continuous patrols in the busier yachting areas could not be discounted.
▪ We need to have the deterrent effect this action would have.
▪ He believes that the deterrent effect, which no longer seems to exist for young people, should be reinstated.
▪ Now, there can be little doubt that the existence of a system of punishment has some general deterrent effect.
■ VERB
act
▪ The black and white stripes of the skunks act as a powerful deterrent, even from a great distance.
▪ In addition, divided catalogues or separate classified catalogues could also have acted as a deterrent to subject searching.
▪ This sentence certainly will not act as a deterrent to other drunk drivers.
▪ Whether that would act as a deterrent is, of course, another question altogether.
▪ A half squadron of gendarmes has been stationed in Maripasoula, their presence supposedly acting as a deterrent.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Experts do not agree about whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent.
▪ The fines are large enough to be an effective deterrent against speeding.
▪ The small fines for copying software were not much of a deterrent.
▪ The special paint is meant to be a deterrent to graffiti artists.
▪ Window locks are a cheap and effective deterrent.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Also unclear is whether execution by lethal injection will have any effect on the death penalty as a crime deterrent.
▪ And not only that, but they pass on their chemical deterrent through the pupal stage into the adult moth itself.
▪ As in human warfare, chemical defences are essentially deterrents rather than everyday weapons.
▪ It is a matter of regret that the Opposition's commitment to that deterrent is not generally accepted.
▪ Requiring drug tests of this discrete group of citizens is an intrusion, a humiliation and a subtle deterrent to prospective candidates.
▪ The bishops said the death penalty was not a deterrent to crime, had racist overtones and cost millions of dollars.
▪ This has proven to be a strong deterrent against theft.
▪ What's more, most people no longer believe the death penalty is a deterrent.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Deterrent

Deterrent \De*ter"rent\, a. [L. deterrens, p. pr. of deterrere. See Deter.] Serving to deter. ``The deterrent principle.''
--E. Davis.

Deterrent

Deterrent \De*ter"rent\, n. That which deters or prevents.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
deterrent

1829, noun and adjective, in Bentham, from Latin deterrentem, present participle of deterrere (see deter). In reference to nuclear weapons, from 1954.

Wiktionary
deterrent

a. Serving to deter, preventing something from happening n. Something that deters.

Related phrases:
WordNet
deterrent

adj. tending to deter; "the deterrent effects of high prices"

deterrent

n. something immaterial that interferes with or delays action or progress [syn: hindrance, impediment, balk, baulk, check, handicap]

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "deterrent".

Then she found a patch of fleabane and pulled up several plants to throw on the fire, as an additional deterrent along with ordinary smoke to help keep a small area close to the fire relatively insect free.

The strongest deterrent to a freeloading politician is the threat of public exposure, and here the grand jury missed the boat.

This point is important because it makes chemical and biological weapons much less useful to Saddam as deterrents of his own.

A makeshift fence of weak plywood slats circled it, but as deterrents went, it was lame.

Other Russians were tamed by deterrents like labour camps, psychiatric hospitals, and the death sentence.

Its current force, however, is probably small and intended principally as a deterrent against efforts to topple the regime by enemies foreign or domestic.

Now, I am familiar with your history of accomplishments in the face of improbable odds, and I realize that, for you, these forces we have put on line are more in the nature of nuisances than deterrents.

Bafforr tree pollen shows promise as an allergen that affects the armor, but it will be some time before the pollen can be synthesized in the amounts needed to serve as an effective deterrent or biological agent.

Logan knew the sound bite was the kind of catchy comment the rest of the media would pick up--one that could prove to be an effective deterrent.

Which was basically the same job on an interstellar scale, with the benefit that governments usually tended to be more rational about the disposition of their strategic interstellar deterrents than bampot street performers with a grudge against society and a home brew nuke.

Christ in a bucket: independent bastarding deterrent, The Genuine Shit Article, cold fucking filtering, Edin-burg, Edin-borow, Sleep when I'm a de-rigueurly long-haired white-skinned head-banging high-pitched middle-aged sub-grunge light-metal Zep-clone.

Still, today the serrated tumbler is used as an effective deterrent to manipulation in combination padlocks where space is a factor.

Like Gardiner, she was convinced that the burnings would act as a deterrent to others.

They were fascinated by the special psionic Talents used by the Federation to reduce loss of life without diluting the effectiveness of the deterrent with which they had defeated the initial attempts of the Hive ships to intrude on their spheres of influence.

Jack disrated Morgan, promoting the dumb negro Alfred King, according to his former threat - a dumb bosun's mate would surely be more terrible, more deterrent.