Crossword clues for prophylactic
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Prophylactic \Proph`y*lac"tic\, n. [Cf. F. prophylactique.] (Med.) A medicine which preserves or defends against disease; a preventive.
Prophylactic \Proph`y*lac"tic\, Prophylactical
\Proph`y*lac"tic*al\, a. [Gr. ?, fr. ? to guard against; ?
before + ? to guard: cf. F. prophylactique.] (Med.)
Defending or preserving from disease; preventive.
--Coxe.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1570s, originally of medicines, "that tends to prevent disease," from Middle French prophylactique (16c.) and directly as a Latinized borrowing of Greek prophylaktikos "precautionary," from prophylassein "keep guard before, ward off, be on one's guard," from pro- "before" (see pro-) + phylassein, Ionic variant of phylattein "to watch over, to guard," but also "cherish, keep, remain in, preserve" (see phylactery).\n
\nThe noun is first recorded 1640s, "a medicine or treatment to prevent disease;" meaning "condom" is from 1943, replacing earlier preventive (1822), preventative (1901). Condoms originally were used more to thwart contagious disease than to prevent pregnancy.
Wiktionary
a. Serving to prevent or protect against an undesired effect, especially disease. n. 1 A medicine which preserves or defends against disease; a preventive. 2 (context US English) ''Specifically'', a prophylactic condom. 3 (context figuratively English) Any device or mechanism intended to prevent harmful consequences.
WordNet
n. remedy that prevents or slows the course of an illness or disease; "the doctor recommended several preventatives" [syn: preventive, preventative]
contraceptive device consisting of a thin rubber or latex sheath worn over the penis during intercourse [syn: condom, rubber, safety, safe]
adj. capable of preventing conception or impregnation; "contraceptive devices and medications" [syn: contraceptive, antifertility]
tending to ward off; "the swastika...a very ancient prophylactic symbol occurring among all peoples"- Victor Schultze [syn: cautionary, preventive]
preventing or contributing to the prevention of disease; "preventive medicine"; "vaccines are prophylactic"; "a prophylactic drug" [syn: preventive, preventative]
Usage examples of "prophylactic".
It is excellent in neuralgia, epilepsy, mania, amaurosis, whooping-cough, stricture, rigidity of the os uteri, and is supposed by some to be a prophylactic or preventive of Scarlet Fever.
It is excellent in neuralgia, epilepsy, mania, amaurosis, whooping-cough, stricture, rigidity of the os uteri, and is supposed by some to be a prophylactic or preventive of Scarlet Fever.
This man, John Allison Anderton, was instrumental in the original creation of the Precrime system, the prophylactic pre-detection of criminals through the ingenious use of mutant precogs, capable of previewing future events and transferring orally that data to analytical machinery.
That was why abdominal-wound patients were immediately given broad-spectrum antibiotics as a prophylactic.
Milton hoses from the sidewalk every morning includes the dead jellyfish of prophylactics and the occasional hermit crab of a lost high heel.
A woman with a blue face wandered past, holding a fishbowl of prophylactics and wearing a sign PRACTICE GLOVE LOVE.
It was low tide, dead ebb, the time when the sea washes back, leaving slick mudflats covered with straggled weed, rusty beer cans, rotted prophylactics, broken bottles, smashed buoys, and greenmossed skeletons in tattered bathing trunks.
We isolated the particular genetic word that creates the prophylactic gland by inserting each of the artificial words into common rats and bats and seeing which ones developed the prophylactic gland.
Before becoming pregnant, couples throughout the world must now pass a basic parenting test, and prove themselves competent, in order to obtain routinely granted procreation licenses and prophylactic overrides for both partners.
This monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of abortions, permissiveness, promiscuity, pills, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, pornotherapy, pollution, poisoning, and proliferation of crimes of all types what happened to pederasty, penis envy, peeping Toms, you think he's got business with the Bible?
Since he had rheumatic heart disease as a child, he has to be treated with prophylactic antibiotics.
It appeared, by what I could piece together of the unprofane fragments of his statement, that he had chanced upon Sir Ossaise at dawn of the morning, and been told that if he would make a short cut across the fields and swamps and broken hills and glades, he could head off a company of travelers who would be rare customers for prophylactics and tooth-wash.