avoid

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To emit or throw out; to void; as, to avoid excretions. [ Obs. ] Sir T. Browne. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To quit or evacuate; to withdraw from. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided
the room. Bacon. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. To make void; to annul or vacate; to refute. [ 1913 Webster ]

How can these grants of the king's be avoided? Spenser. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

What need a man forestall his date of grief.
And run to meet what he would most avoid ? Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

He carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility. Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

6. To get rid of. [ Obs. ] Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

No man can pray from his heart to be kept from temptation, if the take no care of himself to avoid it. Mason. [ 1913 Webster ]

So Chanticleer, who never saw a fox,
Yet shunned him as a sailor shuns the rocks. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. 1. To retire; to withdraw. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

David avoided out of his presence. 1 Sam. xviii. 11. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Law) To become void or vacant. [ Obs. ] Ayliffe. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. 1. Capable of being vacated; liable to be annulled or made invalid; voidable. [ 1913 Webster ]

The charters were not avoidable for the king's nonage. Hale. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Capable of being avoided, shunned, or escaped. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. The act of annulling; annulment. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. The act of becoming vacant, or the state of being vacant; -- specifically used for the state of a benefice becoming void by the death, deprivation, or resignation of the incumbent. [ 1913 Webster ]

Wolsey, . . . on every avoidance of St. Peter's chair, was sitting down therein, when suddenly some one or other clapped in before him. Fuller. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. A dismissing or a quitting; removal; withdrawal. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. The act of avoiding or shunning; keeping clear of. “The avoidance of pain.” Beattie. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. The courts by which anything is carried off. [ 1913 Webster ]

Avoidances and drainings of water. Bacon. [ 1913 Webster ]