forefend

Other forms of forefend

past tense

forefended·

present participle

forefending·

third person

forefends·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about forefend

What does forefend mean?

forefend means "prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening".

How many syllables are in forefend?

forefend has 3 syllables and divides as fo-re-fend under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for forefend?

Close synonyms include debar, forfend, obviate, deflect, avert. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is forefend a common word?

forefend is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.