avoid Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb stay clear from; keep away from; keep out of the way of someone or something
    • Her former friends now avoid her
  2. verb prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening
    stave off; avert; debar; deflect; obviate; head off; forefend; fend off; ward off; forfend.
    • Let's avoid a confrontation
    • head off a confrontation
    • avert a strike
  3. verb refrain from doing something
    • She refrains from calling her therapist too often
    • He should avoid publishing his wife's memories
  4. verb refrain from certain foods or beverages
    keep off.
    • I keep off drugs
    • During Ramadan, Muslims avoid tobacco during the day
  5. verb declare invalid
    invalidate; annul; void; nullify; quash.
    • The contract was annulled
    • void a plea

WordNet

A*void" transitive verb
Etymology
OF. esvuidier, es (L. ex) + vuidier, voidier, to empty. See Void, a.
Wordforms
p & past participle Avoided; present participle & verbal noun Avoiding
Definitions
  1. To empty. Obs. Wyclif.
  2. To emit or throw out; to void; as, to avoid excretions. Obs. Sir T. Browne.
  3. To quit or evacuate; to withdraw from. Obs.
    Six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided the room. Bacon.
  4. To make void; to annul or vacate; to refute.
    How can these grants of the king's be avoided? Spenser.
  5. To keep away from; to keep clear of; to endeavor no to meet; to shun; to abstain from; as, to avoid the company of gamesters.
    What need a man forestall his date of grief. And run to meet what he would most avoid ? Milton.
    He carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility. Macaulay.
  6. To get rid of. Obs. Shak.
  7. (Pleading) To defeat or evade; to invalidate. Thus, in a replication, the plaintiff may deny the defendant's plea, or confess it, and avoid it by stating new matter. Blackstone. Syn. -- To escape; elude; evade; eschew. -- To Avoid, Shun. Avoid in its commonest sense means, to keep clear of, an extension of the meaning, to withdraw one's self from. It denotes care taken not to come near or in contact; as, to avoid certain persons or places. Shun is a stronger term, implying more prominently the idea of intention. The words may, however, in many cases be interchanged.
    No man can pray from his heart to be kept from temptation, if the take no care of himself to avoid it. Mason.
    So Chanticleer, who never saw a fox, Yet shunned him as a sailor shuns the rocks. Dryden.
A*void" intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To retire; to withdraw. Obs.
    David avoided out of his presence. 1 Sam. xviii. 11.
  2. (Law) To become void or vacant. Obs. Ayliffe.

Webster 1913