avoid

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To try not to meet or communicate with (a person); to shun.
2. (transitive) To stay out of the way of (something harmful).
   • I avoided the slap easily.
   • One town was flooded from the storm, while the other town avoided the storm.
3. (transitive) To keep away from; to keep clear of; to stay away from.
   • I try to avoid the company of gamblers.
   • What need a man foreſtall his date of griefe / And run to meet what he would moſt avoid?1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey...
4. (transitive) To try not to do something or to have something happen.
   • Then he realized, by the immobility of the other children and by the way they avoided looking at him, that it was he who was selected for punishment.1953, James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain (A Laurel Book), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co., published December 1985, →ISBN, part 1 (The Seventh Day), page 20
5. (obsolete, transitive) To make empty; to clear.
   • If thou haue, he shal lyue with thee, and auoide thee out ; and he shal not sorewen vpon thee.c. 1395, Wycliffe Bible, Ecclesiasticus 13:6
6. (transitive) To make void, to annul; to refute (especially a contract).
   • But Y seie, this testament is confermed of God; the lawe that was maad after foure hundrid and thritti yeer, makith not the testament veyn to auoide awei the biheest.1395, Wycliffe Bible, Galatians 3:17
   • […] how can those graunts of the Kings be avoyded, without wronging of those lords, which had those lands and lordships given them?1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […]...
7. (transitive) To defeat or evade; to invalidate.
   • […] in an action for treſpaſſing upon land whereof the plaintiff is ſeiſed, if the defendant ſhews a title to the land by deſcent, and that therefore he had a right to enter, and gives colour to the plaintiff, the plaintiff may either traverſe and totally deny the fact of the deſcent; or he may...1768, William Blackstone, “Of Pleading”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book III (Of Private Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, pages 309–310
8. (obsolete, transitive) To emit or throw out; to void.
   • […] the citie of Memi where is a great caue oꝛ denne in the which is a ſpꝛynge oꝛ fountayne that continually auoydethe a great quantitie of Bitumen […]1555, Gonzalus Ferdinandus Ouiedus [i.e., Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés], “[The Historie of the Weste Indies]. Of the Ilande of Cuba and other.”, in Peter Martyr of Angleria [i.e., Peter...
   • […] a Toad piſſeth not, nor doe they containe thoſe urinary parts which are found in other animals, to avoid that ſerous excretion; […]1646, Thomas Browne, “Frogges, Toades, and Toad-stone”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], →OCLC, 3rd book, page 136
9. (obsolete, transitive) To leave, evacuate; to leave as empty, to withdraw or come away from.
   • Anone they encountred to gyders / and he with the reed shelde smote hym soo hard that he bare hym ouer to the erthe / There with anone came another Knyght of the castel / and he was smyten so sore that he auoyded his fadel1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xvij”, in Le Morte Darthur, book X
   • […] the bishop commaunded al to auoide the chambre for an houre, and beganne to talke after this manner to his chaplin […]1565, Thomas Stapleton (translator), The History of the Church of Englande. Compiled by Venerable Bede, Englishman, Antwerp, Book 5, Chapter 20, pp. 178b-179
10. (obsolete, transitive) To get rid of.
    • Whanne Y was a litil child, Y spak as a litil child, Y vndurstood as a litil child, Y thouyte as a litil child; but whanne Y was maad a man, Y auoidide tho thingis that weren of a litil child.1395, Wycliffe Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:11
    • […] expell out of your thoughts all douts, auoid out of your minds all feare; and like valiant champions aduance fooꝛth your ſtandards, […]1587 January, Raphael Holinshed, “The oration of king Richard the third to the chiefteins of his armie”, in The Third Volume of Chronicles, Beginning at Duke William the Norman, Commonlie Called the...
11. (intransitive, obsolete) To retire; to withdraw, depart, go away.
    • The devyll […] ſayde vnto hym: all theſe will I geve the / iff thou wilt faull doune and woꝛſhip me. Thẽ ſayde Ieſus vnto hym. Avoyd Satan.1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Matthew iiij:[8–10], folios iiij, recto – iiij, verso
    • Pray you poore Gentleman, take vp ſome other ſtation: Heere’s no place for you, pray you auoid: Come.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
12. (intransitive, obsolete) To become void or vacant.