Prevention is better than cure meaning
Better to be safe than sorry.
Origin
Prevention is the act of stopping something from happening or avoiding it altogether.
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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Most countries took precautions to prevent their people from falling ill with the coronavirus. For instance, you could say "prevention is better than cure" to describe your behavior of eating right and exercising compared to taking medication for heart problems later in life.
Prevention is better than cure and suits social and professional use.
It’s better to “nip something in the bud” before it snowballs into a much bigger problem in the future.
Example Usage
"I don't think we should go there for dinner. By preventing them from going to work, socialising, shaking hands, touching, it is a way of keeping them as safe as possible.
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Prevention is better than cure."
"Getting vaccinated is better than coming down with Dengue Fever and being treated in the emergency room at the hospital. So, by trying to prevent everyone from catching the virus it is better than having to cure it at a later date.
Medical, Problem, Proverbs
Last update:
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Some historians suggest the early retention of the phrase is "meet the malady on its way," coined by the Roman poet, Persius in AD 58.Language experts believe the modern version has roots in the saying from the mid-13th century, "it is better and more useful to meet a problem in time than to seek a remedy after the damage is done."
This precursor phrase eventually evolved into the modern saying, "Prevention is better than cure," in the early 1500s.
It comes from as early as the 17th century and there is a Latin translation from even earlier (13th century) saying that it is better to meet a problem in time than to seek a remedy later.
This slogan is used by the UK Department of Health and Social Care as their vision to help British citizens live well for longer.
I heard people got sick from food poisoning after eating there.
Prevention is better than cure."
"Teaching kids about the horrors of crime and how it impacts people's lives is better than trying to rehabilitate them after they commit a crime. Prevention is better than cure."
"Understanding what your political candidate will do when they're in office is better than voting them in and trying to change it when they're in the job.
So, the proverbial saying prevention is better than cure means that it is sensible to stop a bad thing or an illness from happening in the first place than to have to deal with awful problems, worse health issues or damages later. Prevention is better than cure."
"I take my vitamins every day to ensure I stay healthy.
You could say “Prevention is better than cure” to describe how your lifestyle stops you from getting sick later in life. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
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