obviate vs prevent

obviate and prevent both are verbs.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
obviate	No	No	Yes	No
prevent	No	No	Yes	No

As verbs, prevent is a hypernym of obviate; that is, prevent is a word with a broader meaning than obviate:

obviate: prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening; to protect from or to keep away anything undesirable; to ward off
prevent: keep from happening or arising; make impossible

Other hypernyms of obviate include forbid, foreclose, forestall, preclude.

obviate (verb)	prevent (verb)
prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening; to protect from or to keep away anything undesirable; to ward off	stop (someone or something) from doing something or being in a certain state
get rid of something	keep from happening or arising; make impossible