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protection

nouncommon in dialogue

  • //pɹəˈtɛkʃn̩//

The process of keeping (something or someone) safe.

noun

  1. 1

    The process of keeping (something or someone) safe.

    Raincoats give protection from rain.

    But then I had the flintlock by me for protection. ¶ There were giants in the days when that gun was made; for surely no modern mortal could have held that mass of metal steady to his shoulder. The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window[…].

  2. 2

    The state of being safe.

  3. 3

    A means of keeping or remaining safe.

  4. 4

    A means, such as a condom, of preventing pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease.

  5. 5

    Coverage.

  6. 6

    Immunity from harm, obtained by illegal payments, as bribery or extortion.

  7. 7

    obsoleteA document serving as a guarantee against harm or interference; a passport.

  8. 8

    Restrictions on foreign competitors which limit their ability to compete with domestic producers of goods or services.

  9. 9

    An instance of a security token associated with a resource (such as a file).

  10. 10

    rareSynonym of adult protection (“adult incontinence wear”).

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *per-der.? Proto-Indo-European *per-der.? Proto-Indo-European *pér Proto-Indo-European *-o Proto-Indo-European *pró Proto-Indo-European *pro- Proto-Italic *pro- Latin pro- Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg-der. Proto-Italic *tegō Latin tegō Latin prōtegō Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Late Latin prōtēctiōder. Old Frenchbor. Middle English English protection From Middle English, from Old French, from stem of Late Latin prōtectiō (“a covering over”), from Latin prōtēctus, perfect passive participle of prōtegere (“to protect, cover in front”). Displaced native Old English ġesċildnes. Equivalent to protect + -ion.

Forms

plural
protections
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).