avoid like the plague

Idioms  

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.

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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.

From The Guardian

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

From Los Angeles Times

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

From Los Angeles Times

In this superb study of Internet addiction, Adam Alter anatomizes the cynicism of an industry in which compulsive lures are built into products that billionaire bosses avoid like the plague.

From Nature

People went to the polls and picked the guy The New York Times and every other newspaper not written in Cyrillic told them to avoid like the plague.

From Seattle Times