avoid like the plague

1. Evade or elude at any cost, shun. For example, Since Bob was taken into police custody, his friends have been avoiding him and his family like the plague. This seemingly modern expression dates from the Latin of the early Middle Ages, when Saint Jerome (a.d. 345–420) wrote, “Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business.” The plague, a deadly infectious disease in his day, has been largely wiped out, but the term remains current.

Example Sentences

It’s the holidays: time for eggnog, ironic Christmas sweaters, and interactions with relatives you’d avoid like the plague if you didn’t share DNA.

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Just the idea of being locked in a boat with a bunch of people, in normal life, you’d avoid like the plague.

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If I were advising a son, I would tell him to avoid like the plague any woman who identifies with people who will do literally anything for power, because she cannot be trusted to treat you with fairness and honesty.

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“It would be nice for him to wrap this up, the Russian investigation, because otherwise the Department of Justice is going to become one of the main actors in the upcoming election as well, just as they were in the 2016 election, which is traditionally something the Department of Justice has tried to avoid like the plague,” he said.

Read more on New York Times

"You're the people I avoid like the plague!"

Read more on Los Angeles Times