avoid

1. (transitive) To try not to meet or communicate with (a person); to shun.transitive

2. (transitive) To stay out of the way of (something harmful).Examples: "I avoided the slap easily."; "One town was flooded from the storm, while the other town avoided the storm."transitive

3. (transitive) To keep away from; to keep clear of; to stay away from.Examples: "I try to avoid the company of gamblers."; "What need a man foreſtall his date of griefe / And run to meet what he would moſt avoid?"; "He still hoped that he might be able to win some chiefs who remained neutral; and he carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility."transitive

4. (transitive) To try not to do something or to have something happen.Examples: "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."transitive

5. (transitive, obsolete) To make empty; to clear.Examples: "If thou haue, he shal lyue with thee, and auoide thee out ; and he shal not sorewen vpon thee."obsoletetransitive

6. (transitive, now law) To make void, to annul; to refute (especially a contract).Examples: "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."; "[…] how can those graunts of the Kings be avoyded, without wronging of those lords, which had those lands and lordships given them?"transitive