avoidance

Noun

avoidance (usually uncountable, plural avoidances)

1. (usually) The act of avoiding or shunning; keeping clear of.
   • At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy ; and what she liked best and best understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality into pabulum.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   discommendation, shunning, silent treatment, blackballing, blacklisting, ostracism, ostracization, petalism

2. (obsolete, usually) The act of annulling; annulment.
3. (obsolete, usually) The act of becoming vacant, or the state of being vacant, specifically used for the state of a benefice becoming void by the death, deprivation, or resignation of the incumbent.
4. (obsolete, usually) The act of dismissing a person.
5. (obsolete, usually) The act of quitting a position or benefice.
6. (obsolete, usually) The course by which anything (especially water) is carried off.
   • In the Upper Gallery too I wish that there may be, if the Place will yield it, some Fountains running in divers Places from the Wall, with some fine Avoidances.a. 1626, Francis Bacon, “XLV. Of Building”, in The essays, or councils, civil and moral […] with a table of the colours of good and evil, and a discourse of The wisdom of the ancients, published...