eschew
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
- eschewal noun
- eschewer noun
- uneschewed adjective
Etymology
Origin of eschew
1300–50; Middle English eschewen < Old French eschiver, eschever < Germanic; compare Old High German sciuhen, German scheuchen, shy 2
Explanation
If you eschew something, you deliberately avoid it. If you love the hustle and bustle of a big city, then most likely you eschew the suburbs. Eschew comes from a word meaning "dread," or "shun." So to eschew something isn’t simply to avoid it, the way you would avoid walking in a puddle — it's stronger than that. You eschew things that you find morally or aesthetically wrong, or that you have chosen to find wrong. Some people eschew processed food and sugary drinks due to health reasons and others eschew using social media during work in order to stay focused.
Vocabulary lists containing eschew
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "E"
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This Week in Words: April 1 - 6, 2018
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
One of the latest entrants is Slate Auto, a startup that plans to offer a compact electric truck that eschew tech extras as much as possible—even lacking a stereo and power windows—for about $25,000.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 8, 2026
To be sure, reducing reliance on U.S. debt doesn’t mean one can eschew U.S. assets completely.
From Barron's • Jan. 21, 2026
But for investors, political fallout is not so easy to eschew.
From MarketWatch • Nov. 28, 2025
But more pernicious are all the local design guidelines that eschew sophisticated sun-path analyses for simple street width–to–building height ratios, regardless of where the sun is.
From Slate • Jul. 23, 2025
It was never wise for a ruler to eschew the trappings of power, for power itself flows in no small measure from such trappings.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
