Avoid word meaning and definition

[verb] stay clear from; keep away from; keep out of the way of someone or something; "Her former friends now avoid her"
[verb] refrain from certain foods or beverages; "I keep off drugs"; "During Ramadan, Muslims avoid tobacco during the day"
[verb] prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening; "Let's avoid a confrontation"; "head off a confrontation"; "avert a strike"
[verb] refrain from doing something; "She refrains from calling her therapist too often"; "He should avoid publishing his wife's memoires"
[verb] declare invalid; "The contract was annulled"; "avoid a plea"

\A*void"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Avoided}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Avoiding}.] [OF. esvuidier, es (L. ex) + vuidier, voidier, to empty. See {Void}, a.] 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. Usage: 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"\, v. i. 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.

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