avoided

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.
3. (transitive) To keep away from; to keep clear of; to stay away from.
   • I try to avoid the company of gamblers.
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

See all 12 meanings of avoid