Taking action to prevent something undesirable from happening; anticipatory.
From Latin 'prae-' (before) and 'emere' (to buy), originally meaning 'to buy before others'. The meaning evolved from commercial contexts to military and general preventive actions by the 20th century.
Preemptive strikes in chess, medicine, and warfare all share the same strategic principle: acting on probability rather than certainty. The word embodies humanity's eternal struggle between patience and anxiety about future threats.
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