From Middle English avoiden, from Anglo-Norman avoider, Old French esvuidier, from es- + vuidier, from Vulgar Latin *vocitāre < la-vul *vocitum, ultimately related to Latin vacuus.

• IPA: /əˈvɔɪd/

avoid (avoids, present participle avoiding; simple past and past participle 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.

   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.

   • 1637, John Milton, Comus (Milton), London: Humphrey Robinson, p. 13,

     What need a man forestall his date of griefe

     And run to meet what he would most avoid?

4. To try not to do something or to have something happen
   • 1953, James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain (A Laurel Book), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co., published December 1985, →ISBN, part 1 (The Seventh Day), page 20 ↗:

     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. (transitive, obsolete) To make empty; to clear.
   • c. 1395,, Wycliffe's Bible, Ecclesiasticus 13:6 ↗:

     If thou haue, he shal lyue with thee, and auoide thee out ; and he shal not sorewen vpon thee.

6. (transitive, now legal) To make void, to annul; to refute (especially a contract).
   • 1395, Wycliffe Bible‎, Galatians 3:17:

     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.

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, A View of the State of Ireland, Dublin: John Morrisson, 1809, reprint of the 1633 edition, p. 233,

     […] how can those graunts of the Kings be avoyded, without wronging of those lords, which had those lands and lordships given them?

7. (transitive, legal) To defeat or evade; to invalidate.
   • 1768, William Blackstone, chapter 20, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book III (Of Private Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC ↗, page 310 ↗:

     […] 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 confess and avoid it, by replying, that true it is that such descent happened, but that since the descent the defendant himself demised the lands to the plaintiff for term of life.

8. (transitive, obsolete) To emit or throw out; to void.
   • 1577, Richard Eden (translator), The History of Trauayle in the West and East Indies [De Orbo Novo, Decades 1-3] by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, London, “Of the ordinary nauigation from Spayne to the west Indies,” p. 224b,

     […] the citie of Memi, where is a great Caue or Denne, in the whiche is a spryng or fountayne that contynually auoydeth a great quantitie of Bitumen […]

   • 1650, Thomas Browne, chapter 13, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC ↗, 3rd book, page 136 ↗:

     […] a Toad pisseth not, nor doe they containe those urinary parts which are found in other animals, to avoid that serous excretion […]

9. (transitive, obsolete) To leave, evacuate; to leave as empty, to withdraw or come away from.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/MaloryWks2/1:12.17?rgn=div2;view=fulltext xvij]”, in Le Morte Darthur, book X:

     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

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1565, Thomas Stapleton (theologian) (translator), Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Compiled by Bede, Englishman, Antwerp, Book 5, Chapter 20, pp. 178b-179,

     […] the bishop commaunded al to auoide the chambre for an houre, and beganne to talke after this manner to his chaplin […]

10. (transitive, obsolete) To get rid of.
    • 1395, Wycliffe Bible‎, 1 Corinthians 13:11:

      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.

    • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

      […] the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it.

11. (intransitive, obsolete) To retire; to withdraw, depart, go away.
    • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC ↗, Matthew:

      The devyll […] sayde to hym: all these will I geue ye, if thou wilt faull doune and worship me. Then sayde Iesus unto hym. Avoyd Satan.

    • c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act IV, scene v]:

      Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other station; here’s no place for you; pray you, avoid:

    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, 1 Samuel 18:11 ↗:

      And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.

12. (intransitive, obsolete) To become void or vacant.

• (to keep away from) See Thesaurus:avoid

• French: éviter
• German: ausweichen
• Italian: schivare, evitare
• Portuguese: evitar
• Spanish: evitar, esquivar

• French: éviter, fuir
• German: meiden, fernbleiben (exalted)
• Italian: evitare
• Portuguese: evitar
• Russian: избега́ть
• Spanish: evitar

• German: vermeiden

• German: entkräften, abwerten, abschwächen
• Russian: отменя́ть