Preemptive

//pɹiːˈɛmp.tɪv// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or relating to preemption.
  2. 2
    Made so as to deter an anticipated unpleasant situation.

    "a preemptive attack on the enemy"

  3. 3
    Intended to interfere with an opponent's bidding.
Adjective
  1. 1
    designed or having the power to deter or prevent an anticipated situation or occurrence wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
pre emptivepre-emptive

Example

More examples

""That's genocide!" "You call it genocide, I call it preemptive neutralization of undesirable elements. Tomayto, tomahto.""

Etymology

From preempt + -ive.

Related phrases

preemptive rightpreemptive self-defencepreemptive strikepreemptive therapy

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.