avoid
- to keep away from; keep clear of; shun: to avoid a person; to avoid taxes; to avoid danger.
- to prevent from happening: to avoid falling.
- Law. to make void or of no effect; invalidate.
- Obsolete. to empty; eject or expel.
Origin of avoid
Synonym study
Synonyms for avoid
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.comAntonyms for avoid
Related Words for avoided
dodge, avert, sidestep, evade, bypass, escape, shun, shy, jump, abstain, hide, shake, circumvent, divert, eschew, deflect, obviate, elude, desist, recoilExamples from the Web for avoided
Contemporary Examples of avoided
By allowing him to live, Marshal avoided the shame of killing an unarmed heir-apparent.
Now, I think he avoided it because of something that happened a few months after he left.
“Words of condemnation and marginalization were avoided,” he says.
Even as President Obama has avoided getting the military more involved in Iraq, the mission has gradually expanded.
I avoided him and to this day I have not seen him in person since then.
Historical Examples of avoided
If it may be avoided, I will not see the whole of your youth consumed in anxious watchings.
PhilotheaLydia Maria Child
I avoided the house of Mr Clayton, and absented myself from his chapel.
The truth could not be concealed, nor the contemplation of it avoided.
Fragments from The Journal of a Solitary ManNathaniel Hawthorne
They are not necessary; they might be avoided; at their worst they could be tempered.
The Conquest of FearBasil King
Then the danger of getting too much coloring will be avoided.
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
avoid
- to keep out of the way of
- to refrain from doing
- to prevent from happeningto avoid damage to machinery
- law to make (a plea, contract, etc) void; invalidate; quash
- obsolete to expel
- obsolete to depart from
Word Origin for avoid
Word Origin and History for avoided
avoid
c.1300, from Anglo-French avoider "to clear out, withdraw (oneself)," partially anglicized from Old French esvuidier "to empty out," from es- "out" (see ex-) + vuidier "to be empty," from voide "empty, vast, wide, hollow, waste" (see void (adj.)). Originally a law term; modern sense of "have nothing to do with" also was in Middle English and corresponds to Old French eviter with which it was perhaps confused. Meaning "escape, evade" first attested 1520s. Related: Avoided; avoiding.