prevent

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a stumble may prevent a fall

proverb A setback or obstacle may ultimately prevent worse problems. A: "Maybe it's a good thing you closed the business when you did—you would have lost so much more money in this recession." B: "That is true. They do say that a stumble may prevent a fall." I know it's hard to think of it this way, but a stumble may prevent a fall. Yes, you were hoping your script would get picked up by a studio, but maybe it's better that that didn't happen right now—they'd be liable to exploit a young unknown like yourself. Well, try not to dwell on the adversity we're facing—a stumble may prevent a fall, after all.
See also: fall, may, prevent, stumble

prevent (someone or something) from (doing something)

To stop a person or thing from being able to do something. Something is preventing the machine from turning off, so the motor is getting overheated. The government is trying to prevent us from exercising our right to free speech.
See also: prevent
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

prevent someone from doing something

to keep someone from doing something. You can't prevent me from doing it! We must try to prevent her from going back there.
See also: prevent
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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References in periodicals archive ?
FMCSA is also proposing to test an additional eight crash types for eligibility as "not preventable," including those where a truck is hit by a vehicle that did not stop or slow in traffic, struck by a vehicle making an illegal turn, and struck by a driver experiencing a medical issue.
Of these, more than 28,000 experienced harmful incidents and more than 15,000 suffered preventable harms.
We collected three outcome measures by month for all residents in the sample from the National Patient Register: whether a nursing home resident was admitted to a hospital in that month; whether that admission qualified as a preventable hospitalization; and whether the person was readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of a prior hospitalization.
Jo Bibby, director of health at the Health Foundation, said: "When looking at the causes of preventable deaths, it is all too easy to blame the individual.
Concerning the classification of death causes, the codes 10th International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) were gathered into two groups: avoidable and non-avoidable, according to the criteria adopted in the "Brazilian List of Preventable Death Causes" for the population aged 5 to 74 years (6,7).
Outbreaks of preventable diseases transpire when many parents decide not to vaccinate their children.
The effectiveness of computerized order entry at reducing preventable adverse drug events and medication errors in hospital settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
The Patient Safety Movement's 2018 Midyear Planning Meeting, co-convened by UCI Health, is a full-day working meeting that brings together 100 leading medical experts, policymakers and patient advocates from around the world for an intimate examination and discussion on the six leading causes of preventable patient deaths in hospitals.
KARACHI -- As many as 111 people are dying daily due to complications of hepatitis B and C in Pakistan, which are largely preventable and completely treatable diseases but unfortunately, majority of people in the country are unaware that they are infected with these lethal viruses which are extremely silent killers, leading gastroenterologists and herpetologists said on Friday.
Too many people were dying preventable deaths from lung cancer and car accidents.
Emergency readmissions to hospital for potentially preventable conditions such as pneumonia and pressure sores have also gone up by two fifths in the last seven years, analysis from the Nuffield Trust think tank shows.
LAHORE -- Amputations due to diabetes cause unnecessary loss of life and disability which is quite preventable.
Addressing on the occasion, Pakistan Paediatric Association (PPA) Punjab General Secretary Dr Haroon Hamid said two to three million children died of preventable diseases only because they were unable to get vaccinated.
LONDON:As over eight million Pakistanis were suffering from preventable vision loss, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Thursday expressed his government's clear commitment to eliminate preventable blindness from the country.