protects

/P R AH0 T EH1 K T S/
verb
  1. 1

    To keep safe; to defend; to guard; to prevent harm coming to.

    โ€œCondoms are designed to protect against sexually-transmitted diseases.โ€

  2. 2

    (travel) To book a passenger on a later flight if there is a chance they will not be able to board their earlier reserved flight.

Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/protect, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/protects