AVOID

avoid

(verb) stay clear from; keep away from; keep out of the way of someone or something; “Her former friends now avoid her”

debar, forefend, forfend, obviate, deflect, avert, head off, stave off, fend off, avoid, ward off

(verb) prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening; “Let’s avoid a confrontation”; “head off a confrontation”; “avert a strike”

avoid

(verb) refrain from doing something; “She refrains from calling her therapist too often”; “He should avoid publishing his wife’s memories”

invalidate, annul, quash, void, avoid, nullify

(verb) declare invalid; “The contract was annulled”; “void a plea”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Verb

avoid (third-person singular simple present avoids, present participle avoiding, simple past and past participle avoided)

(transitive) to try not to meet or communicate with (a person); to shun

to keep away from; to keep clear of; to stay away from

To try not to do something or to have something happen

(transitive, obsolete) To make empty; to clear.

(transitive, now legal) To make void, to annul; to refute (especially a contract).

(transitive, legal) To defeat or evade; to invalidate.

(transitive, obsolete) To emit or throw out; to void.

(transitive, obsolete) To leave, evacuate; to leave as empty, to withdraw or come away from.

(transitive, obsolete) To get rid of.

(intransitive, obsolete) To retire; to withdraw, depart, go away.

(intransitive, obsolete) To become void or vacant.

Usage notes

• This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing). See English catenative verbs

Synonyms

• (to keep away from): See Thesaurus:avoid

Source: Wiktionary


A*void" (, v. t. [p. & p. p. Avoided; p. pr. & vb. n. Avoiding.] Etym: [OF. esvuidier, es (L. ex) + vuidier, voidier, to empty. See Void, a.]

1. To empty. [Obs.] Wyclif.

2. To emit or throw out; to void; as, to avoid excretions. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

3. To quit or evacuate; to withdraw from. [Obs.] Six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided the room. Bacon.

4. To make void; to annul or vacate; to refute. How can these grants of the king's be avoided Spenser.

5. To keep away from; to keep clear of; to endeavor no to meet; to shun; to abstain from; as, to avoid the company of gamesters. What need a man forestall his date of grief. And run to meet what he would most avoid Milton. He carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility. Macaulay.

6. To get rid of. [Obs.] Shak.

7. (Pleading)

Definition: To defeat or evade; to invalidate. Thus, in a replication, the plaintiff may deny the defendant's plea, or confess it, and avoid it by stating new matter. Blackstone.

Syn.

– To escape; elude; evade; eschew.

– To Avoid, Shun. Avoid in its commonest sense means, to keep clear of, an extension of the meaning, to withdraw one's self from. It denotes care taken not to come near or in contact; as, to avoid certain persons or places. Shun is a stronger term, implying more prominently the idea of intention. The words may, however, in many cases be interchanged. No man can pray from his heart to be kept from temptation, if the take no care of himself to avoid it. Mason. So Chanticleer, who never saw a fox, Yet shunned him as a sailor shuns the rocks. Dryden.

A*void", v. i.

1. To retire; to withdraw. [Obs.] David avoided out of his presence. 1 Sam. xviii. 11.

2. (Law)

Definition: To become void or vacant. [Obs.] Ayliffe.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

28 March 2024

HUDDLED

(adjective) crowded or massed together; “give me...your huddled masses”; “the huddled sheep turned their backs against the wind”


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