prophylactic

A medicine which preserves or defends against disease; a preventive.

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

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

Any device or mechanism intended to prevent harmful consequences.figuratively

• The securities laws are a prophylactic against stock fraud.

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

• 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, m