prophylactic

plural prophylactics

1. A medicine which preserves or defends against disease; a preventive.
   1. USspecificallyA prophylactic condom.

      Given the widespread use of coitus interruptus and male prophylactics as contraceptive practices in France […]

      1994, Mary Louise Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917–1927, University of Chicago Press, page 96

      2 more examples

      It is not clear whether such education is to be directed to homosexuals (for whom prophylactics are not a contraceptive) or to heterosexuals as well (for whom prophylactics are a contraceptive).

      1977, Human Life Center, International Review of Natural Family Planning, Human Life Center, St. John's University, page 2

      Some men put the prophylactic on just the tip of the penis: this is a mistake, because the prophylactic will come off.

      2000, Peter Parnell, John Irving, The Cider House Rules: Here in St. Cloud's, Dramatists Play Service, Inc., page 46

      Synonyms: condom, cum catcher, rubber

2. figurativelyAny device or mechanism intended to prevent harmful consequences.

   The securities laws are a prophylactic against stock fraud.

   1 more example

   Since tere are increasingly powerful anti-free speech tendencies in the left in general and in the Lesbian and Gay movements in particular in the form of the antiporn movement and other tendencies, I will quote extensively from the second chapter of On Liberty, "On The Liberty Of Thought And Discussion," as a valuable and much needed prophylactic to these trends.

   1984 December 8, Robert Halfhill, “Pornography, Free Speech and Gay Separatism”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 21, page 5

comparative more prophylactic · superlative most prophylactic

1. Serving to prevent or protect against an undesired effect, especially disease or pregnancy.

   1 more example

   It occurred to me that regular hours, home-cooked meals, all the conventions of marriage, the prophylactic routine of its bedroom activities and, who knows, the eventual flowering of certain moral values, of certain spiritual substitutes, might help me, if not to purge myself of my degrading and dangerous desires, at least to keep them under pacific control.

   1955 September 15, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, Paris: The Olympia Press […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: preventative