avoid

Verb

1. To try not to meet or communicate with (a person); to shun.
2. To stay out of the way of (something harmful).
   • I avoided the slap easily.
   • One town was flooded from the storm, while the other town avoided the storm.
3. To keep away from; to keep clear of; to stay away from.
   • I try to avoid the company of gamblers.
   • What need a man foreſtall his date of griefe / And run to meet what he would moſt avoid? - 1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow...
   • He still hoped that he might be able to win some chiefs who remained neutral; and he carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility. - 1851, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XIII, in The History...
4. To try not to do something or to have something happen.
   • Then he realized, by the immobility of the other children and by the way they avoided looking at him, that it was he who was selected for punishment. - 1953, James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain (A Laurel Book),...
5. To make empty; to clear.
   • If thou haue, he shal lyue with thee, and auoide thee out ; and he shal not sorewen vpon thee. - c. 1395, Wycliffe Bible, Ecclesiasticus 13:6
6. To make void, to annul; to refute (especially a contract).
   • But Y seie, this testament is confermed of God; the lawe that was maad after foure hundrid and thritti yeer, makith not the testament veyn to auoide awei the biheest. - 1395, Wycliffe Bible, Galatians 3:17:
   • […] how can those graunts of the Kings be avoyded, without wronging of those lords, which had those lands and lordships given them? - 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of...
7. To defeat or evade; to invalidate.
   • […] in an action for treſpaſſing upon land whereof the plaintiff is ſeiſed, if the defendant ſhews a title to the land by deſcent, and that therefore he had a right to enter, and gives colour to the plaintiff, the...
8. To emit or throw out; to void.
   • […] the citie of Memi where is a great caue oꝛ denne in the which is a ſpꝛynge oꝛ fountayne that continually auoydethe a great quantitie of Bitumen […] - 1555, Gonzalus Ferdinandus Ouiedus [i.e., Gonzalo Fernández de...
   • […] a Toad piſſeth not, nor doe they containe thoſe urinary parts which are found in other animals, to avoid that ſerous excretion; […] - 1646, Thomas Browne, “Frogges, Toades, and Toad-stone”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica:...
9. To leave, evacuate; to leave as empty, to withdraw or come away from.
   • Anone they encountred to gyders / and he with the reed shelde smote hym soo hard that he bare hym ouer to the erthe / There with anone came another Knyght of the castel / and he was smyten so sore that he auoyded his...
   • 1565, Thomas Stapleton (translator), The History of the Church of Englande. Compiled by Venerable Bede, Englishman, Antwerp, Book 5, Chapter 20, pp. 178b-179, […] the bishop commaunded al to auoide the chambre for an...
   • This yeare alſo was a pꝛoclamation made in London, and thꝛoughout all the realme, that all ſtrangers ſhould auoid the land befoꝛe the feaſt of ſaint Michaell then next following except thoſe that came with merchandize....
10. To get rid of.
    • Whanne Y was a litil child, Y spak as a litil child, Y vndurstood as a litil child, Y thouyte as a litil child; but whanne Y was maad a man, Y auoidide tho thingis that weren of a litil child. - 1395, Wycliffe Bible, 1...
    • […] expell out of your thoughts all douts, auoid out of your minds all feare; and like valiant champions aduance fooꝛth your ſtandards, […] - 1587 January, Raphael Holinshed, “The oration of king Richard the third to...
    • […] the ſpirit of my Father, which I thinke is within mee, begins to mutinie againſt this ſeruitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wiſe remedy how to auoid it. - c. 1598–1600 (date written), William...
11. To retire; to withdraw, depart, go away.
    • The devyll […] ſayde vnto hym: all theſe will I geve the / iff thou wilt faull doune and woꝛſhip me. Thẽ ſayde Ieſus vnto hym. Avoyd Satan. - 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible),...
    • Pray you poore Gentleman, take vp ſome other ſtation: Heere’s no place for you, pray you auoid: Come. - c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares...
    • And Saul caſt the iauelin; foꝛ hee ſaid, I will ſmite Dauid euen to the wall with it: and Dauid auoided out of his pꝛeſence twice. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC,...
12. To become void or vacant.