avoid

verb avoids · avoiding · avoided

1. transitive To try not to meet or communicate with (a person); to shun.
2. transitive To stay out of the way of (something harmful). I avoided the slap easily.
3. transitive To keep away from; to keep clear of; to stay away from. I try to avoid the company of gamblers.
4. transitive 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.
5. obsolete, transitive To make empty; to clear. If thou haue, he shal lyue with thee, and auoide thee out ; and he shal not sorewen vpon thee.
6. transitive 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.
7. transitive 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 plaintiff may either traverſe and totally deny the fact of the deſcent; or he may conf
8. obsolete, transitive 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 […]
9. obsolete, transitive 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 fadel
10. obsolete, transitive 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.
11. intransitive, obsolete 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.
12. intransitive, obsolete To become void or vacant.

Similar: abjure, avert, stave off, avoid, dodge, duck, help, elude, escape, eschew, evade, evitate, get away from, long off, sack off, sidestep, shy away from, skirt, shun, steer clear, swerve, waive · Opposite: come to grips with, confront, deal with, engage, get to grips with, take the bull by the horns