avoidance

American  

[uh-void-ns] / əˈvɔɪd ns /

noun

1. the act of avoiding or keeping away from.

   the avoidance of scandal; the avoidance of one's neighbors.

2. Law. a making void; annulment.

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Other Word Forms

• nonavoidance noun

Etymology

Origin of avoidance

1350–1400; Middle English < Anglo-French; avoid, -ance

Example Sentences

If approach beats avoidance, the next design principle is more counterintuitive: Make the goal small—almost embarrassingly so.

From The Wall Street Journal

I was also encouraged to confront my avoidance of anything that might remind me of the trauma.

From BBC

Rather than being limited to hunting or avoidance, these interactions sometimes involved close cooperation and management, hinting at early experiments with domestication that did not lead directly to modern dogs.

From Science Daily

Belle Lin: Some of the metrics that have come to the fore are things like “cost avoidance.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Researchers from Google found that models make trade-offs between stipulated pleasure and pain states, giving priority to pain avoidance over rewards in ways that suggest more than mere token prediction.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• evasion
• prevention
• restraint