obviate
Syllables: ob·vi·ate/ˈɒb.viˌeɪt//ˈab.viˌeɪt/
obviate verb: to anticipate and prevent or bypass (something which would otherwise have been necessary or required); to render (something) unnecessary.
Verb
obviate (third-person singular simple present obviates, present participle obviating, simple past and past participle obviated)
- To anticipate and prevent or bypass (something which would otherwise have been necessary or required); to render (something) unnecessary.
- […] and in the kindest manner she now urged Fanny’s taking one for the cross and to keep for her sake, saying everything she could think of to obviate the scruples which were making Fanny start back at first with a look of horror at the proposal.1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter XXVI, in Mansfield Park: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC
- The door it was necessary to keep ajar in hers, as in most cottages, because of the smoke; but she obviated the effect of the ribbon of light through the chink by hanging a cloth over that also.1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter III, in The Woodlanders […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
- To avoid (a future problem or difficult situation).
- A mild dose of a warm active aperient to obviate costiveness, or to produce two motions daily, is generally very beneficial.1826, Richard Reece, A Practical Dissertation on the Means of Obviating & Treating the Varieties of Costiveness, page 181
- If the predisposition to the disease has arisen from a plethoric state of the system, or from a turgescence in the vessels of the head, this is to be obviated by bleeding, both generally and topically, but more particularly the latter; an abstemious diet and proper exercise; and by a seton in the...1842, Gibbons Merle, John Reitch, The Domestic Dictionary and Housekeeper’s Manual: Comprising Everything Related to Cookery, Diet, Economy and Medicine. By Gibbons Merle. The Medical Portion of the...
Noun
obviate (plural obviates)
Adjective
obviate (not comparable)
- Synonym of obviative.
- Colville has a rich deictic system with forms which distinguish, for example, between source and location, with each possibility characterized as proximate and obviate as well (Mattina, 1973).1995, Michael Darnell, “Preverbal nominals in Colville-Okanagan”, in Pamela Downing, Michael P. Noonan, editors, Word Order in Discourse, page 91
- The renovated system involved an obviate-proximate pronominal alternation (yu- vs. mu- respectively in Tolowa; see Bommelyn 1997), with the pronouns coming most likely out of the deictic pronoun system.1999, Edgar C. Polomé, Carol F. Justus, Winfred Philipp Lehmann, Language Change and Typological Variation: Language change and phonology, page 115
- Synonyms:
- obviative
obviate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
obviate in Tamil
- அகற்று, தவிர்த்து விடு, நீக்கு
obviate in Urdu
- آڑے آ جانا, پیش دستی کرنا, روکنا
obviate in Bengali
- অপ্রয়োজনীয় করে তোলা, দূর করা
obviate in Malayalam
- പരിഹരിക്കുക, ഒഴിവാക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- obviate in Kannada
- ತಡೆ, ತೊಡೆದುಹಾಕು, ಬೇಡಿಕೆ ಕಳೆ
Examples of obviate in a sentence
- Some change requests, rather than extend the scope, obviate some of the existing scope of a project.2004, David J. Anderson, Agile Management for Software Engineering, page 180:
- Thus, to obviate resistance, the discussion should be relevant to the patient′s problems.2008, William S. Kroger, Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis: In Medicine, Dentistry, and Psychology, page 163:
- Moreover, the risk does not obviate two crucial facts in this case.2019 February 21, Gary Younge, “Shamima Begum has a right to British citizenship, whether you like it or not”, in The Guardian:
- This use of the obviate deictic category—that, there, those—contrasts sharply with the use of the proximate in the body of the narrative— this, here, these.2009, Nikolas Coupland, Adam Jaworski, Sociolinguistics: The sociolinguistics of culture, page 410:
Synonyms of obviate
Antonyms
Forms of obviate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | obviates |
| present participle | obviating |
| past participle | obviated |
| past | obviated |
| Noun | |
| plural | obviates |
Origin of obviate
First attested in 1567; borrowed from Latin obviātus, perfect passive participle of obviō (“to block, to hinder”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
Borrowed from Latin obviātus, see Etymology 1, -ate (noun-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix).
Questions about obviate
- What does obviate mean?
- Obviate means to anticipate and prevent or bypass (something which would otherwise have been necessary or required); to render (something) unnecessary.
- What is obviate in Tamil?
- Obviate in Tamil is அகற்று, தவிர்த்து விடு, நீக்கு. See Obviate meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use obviate in a sentence?
- Some change requests, rather than extend the scope, obviate some of the existing scope of a project.
- What part of speech is obviate?
- Obviate can be a verb, a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce obviate?
- Obviate is pronounced /ˈɒb.viˌeɪt/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of obviate?
- The past tense of obviate is obviated.
Words near obviate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: obviate (page history and authors); obviate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); obviate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); obviate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); obviate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); obviate (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-obviate.wav, En-us-obviate.oga.
Cite this entry: “obviate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/obviate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.