protectiveadj.n.

1653 S. Fisher Παιδοβαπτιζοντες Παιδιζοντες: Baby-baptism 544 Under the protective power of civil Magistracy free from molestation.

1661 O. Felltham Resolves (rev. ed.) 310 [The] accidents of Life deny us any safety, but what we have from the favour of protective Providence.

1668 Earl of Orrery Henry V iv. 30 For what can a protective aid afford Against the clearest Right, and sharpest Sword?

1728 J. Thomson Spring 39 The stately-sailing Swan..Bears onward fierce, and beats you from the Bank, Protective of his Young.

1793 J. Smeaton Narr. Edystone Lighthouse (ed. 2) §328 To apply the protective coat, before any rust could be formed.

1833 C. Lamb Lett. (1935) III. 353 Those canvas-sleeves protective from ink.

1871 C. Darwin Descent of Man II. xvi. 224 There are twenty-six species..which manifestly have had their plumage coloured in a protective manner.

1921 E. L. White Andivius Hedulio ii. xii. 190 One of those tiny, flat leathern pouches, in which slaves were accustomed to wear protective amulets.

1940 Topeka (Kansas) State Jrnl. 19 Apr. 1/8 De Geer in his broadcast declared The Netherlands would resist with arms any attempt by a foreign power to extend protective help to her.

1964 Financial Times 8 Sept. 11/4 The operator can safely grit-blast without having to dress in protective clothing.

1995 New Scientist 1 Apr. (World Below Suppl.) 18/1 Historically, this condition was called sewer worker's disease. But today, protective clothing has all but stamped out this occupational hazard.

2003 D. Brown Da Vinci Code (2004) xxi. 141 A lone portrait hung behind a protective Plexiglas wall.

1836 Times 24 Oct. 6/3 [He] dwelt at considerable length on the advantages to be derived from such an association as the Rathdown Protective Association.

1862 N.-Y. Times 9 July 5/3 The men have..formed a Protective Union, and have resolved not to work in connection with the elevators, or for any man who employs them.

1909 Westm. Gaz. 1 Oct. 7/1 It is suggested that well-known Glasgow firms should form themselves into a protective club with a view to insuring their own vessels on a mutual basis.

1948 D. B. Robinson Spotlight on Union iii. 42 Across the river in New York City, a Hat Finishers Protective Society was functioning.

1970 Times 27 Oct. 17/3 The institute does not consider that membership or a trade union or a protective association is in any way incompatible with membership of R.I.C.

2001 R. F. Burk Much More than Game i. 20 A dozen of them [sc. umpires] from major and minor leagues in the New York area had met to consider the formation of a protective association.

1865 E. Stoddard Two Men xx. 158 Philippa was moved by his paleness, lassitude, and mysterious excitement; a protective, pitying feeling impelled her to go to him, put her arm about his neck, and kiss his cheek.

1930 Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) 5 Apr. 7/8 ‘Little-Bits’ was younger, and the gang felt paternally protective towards him.

1943 P. Larkin Let. 12 Oct. in Sel. Lett. (1992) 76 I feel big-brotherly and protective at the idea of such a simple little child absolutely at the mercy of a decayed character like you.

1970 W. Henry Spanking & Bondage iv. 75 At the outset he envisioned himself as the strong, protective type... I pretended to be the blushing bride type.

1984 M. Amis Money 128 Why do we feel protective when we watch the loved one who is unaware of being watched?

1896 R. Robb Electr. Wiring v. 171 All conductors..must be provided near the point of entrance to the building with some protective device which will operate to shunt the instruments in case of a dangerous rise in potential, and will open the circuit and arrest an abnormal current flow.

1922 Electr. Rev. 30 June 928/1 The equipment for each end of the line of a 3-phase system comprises three protective transformers, a biasing transformer, an earth fault relay, [etc.].

1978 Gramophone Apr. 1796/3 There is also a mains voltage adjuster and twin 2.5A protective mains fuses.

1986 F. Guillou & C. Gray in A. Limon et al. Home Owner Man. (ed. 2) v. vi. 793 There is no alternative, when installing the 13 A socket-outlets that must be used, to running an earth connection (protective conductor) right back to the earthing point at the consumer's terminal.

1906 Jrnl. Soc. Chem. Industry 31 May 484/1 To insure the satisfactory production of bright deposits it is in all cases essential to employ clear, well filtered solutions. The authors explain the observed phenomena by supposing that the bright deposit is formed by causing the metal to retain its amorphous condition and preventing it from becoming crystalline. The mutual protective effect of colloids upon one another..is probably the chief factor.

1939 Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. (ed. 4) III. 287/1 Zsigmondy showed that the sharp colour change from red to blue displayed by gold sols under the influence of electrolytes could be used as a means of obtaining a quantitative comparison of the protective action of different colloids.

1979 Jrnl. Amer. Chem. Soc. 101 7214/2 We report here for the first time that a surfactant acts as protective agent for metal platinum in photolytic reactions.

1932 Chem. Abstr. 26 5072 The method of synthesizing peptides which consists in stabilizing the amino group of 1 acid with a protective group R, then so altering the CO₂H group as to enable it to couple with a 2nd amino acid and removing the group R after the coupling has been effected.

1968 I. L. Finar Org. Chem. (ed. 4) II. xiii. 582 Bergmann (1932) introduced carbobenzoxy chloride as an amino protective group, and this appears to be the most widely used method of protection.

1993 Nucleic Acids Res. 21 3493 The combination of the AMB [sc. 2-(acetoxymethyl)benzoyl] protective group and ammonia/methanol as deprotection reagent significantly improves the synthesis of methylphosphonate-modified DNA fragments.