Verb

(en verb)

To turn aside or away.

To avert the eyes from an object.

To ward off, or prevent, the occurrence or effects of.

How can the danger be averted ?

* Milton

To avert his ire.

* Prior

Till ardent prayer averts the public woe.

(archaic) To turn away.

* Thomson

Cold and averting from our neighbour's good.

(archaic) To turn away.

* Francis Bacon

When atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it doth avert them from the church.

Verb

(en verb)

(lb) To hold inside.

*

At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria,

(lb) To include as a part.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2014-04-21, volume=411, issue=8884, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Subtle effects , passage=Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.}}

(lb) To put constraint upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.

* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)

The king's person contains the unruly people from evil occasions.

* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves.

*

Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.

To have as an element.

To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity.

* Bible, vii. 9.

But if they can not contain , let them marry.