Verb

To keep away from; to keep clear of; to endeavor not to meet; to shun; to abstain from.

:I try to avoid the company of gamblers.

*1526 , Bible , tr. William Tyndale, Matthew 4:

*:The devyllsayde unto hym: all these will I geve the, iff thou wilt faull doune and worship me. Then sayde Jesus unto hym. Avoyde Satan.

*Milton

*:What need a man forestall his date of grief, / And run to meet what he would most avoid ?

*Macaulay

*:He carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility.

*{{quote-news, year=2012, date=June 19, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport

, title= England 1-0 Ukraine , passage=England could have met world and European champions Spain but that eventuality was avoided by Sweden's 2-0 win against France, and Rooney's first goal in a major tournament since scoring twice in the 4-2 victory over Croatia in Lisbon at Euro 2004.}}

(obsolete) To make empty; to clear.

:(Wyclif)

To make void, to annul; to refute (especially a contract).

*Spenser

*:How can these grants of the king's be avoided ?

(legal) 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)

(obsolete) To emit or throw out; to void; as, to avoid excretions.

:(Sir Thomas Browne)

(obsolete) To leave, evacuate; to leave as empty, to withdraw or come away from.

*:

*: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

*Francis Bacon

*:Six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided the room.

(obsolete) To get rid of.

:(Shakespeare)

(obsolete) To retire; to withdraw, depart, go away.

(obsolete) To become void or vacant.

Verb

(dropp)

To fall in droplets (of a liquid).

* Spenser

The kindly dew drops from the higher tree, / And wets the little plants that lowly dwell.

To drip (a liquid).

* Creech

The trees drop balsam.

* Sterne

The recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.

Generally, to fall (straight down).

(ergative) To let fall; to allow to fall (either by releasing hold of, or losing one's grip on).

To let drops fall; to discharge itself in drops.

* Bible, Psalms lxviii. 8

The heavens dropped at the presence of God.

To sink quickly to the ground.

To fall dead, or to fall in death.

* Digby

Nothing, says Seneca, so soon reconciles us to the thoughts of our own death, as the prospect of one friend after another dropping round us.

To come to an end (by not being kept up); to stop.

* 1897 , (Henry James), (What Maisie Knew) :

Maisie's faith in Mrs. Wix for instance had suffered no lapse from the fact that all communication with her had temporarily dropped .

To mention casually or incidentally, usually in conversation.

(slang) To part with or spend (money).

* 1949 , The Atlantian , v 8, Atlanta: United States Penitentiary, p 41:

The question was: Who put the most in the collection box? The wealthy guy, who dropped a “C” note, or the tattered old dame who parted with her last tarnished penny.

* 2000 , Lisa Reardon, Blameless: A Novel , Random House, p 221:

I forked over the $19.25. I was in no position to be dropping twenties like gumdrops but I deserved something good from this crappy morning.

To cease concerning oneself over; to have nothing more to do with (a subject, discussion etc.).

* S. Sharp

They suddenly drop't the pursuit.

* Thackeray

that astonishing ease with which fine ladies drop you and pick you up again

* Sir Walter Scott

The connection had been dropped many years.

To lessen, decrease, or diminish in value, condition, degree, etc.

* , chapter=17

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything. In a moment she had dropped to the level of a casual labourer.}}

To let (a letter etc.) fall into a postbox; to send (a letter or message).

To make (someone or something) fall to the ground from a blow, gunshot etc.; to bring down, to shoot down.

* 1846, ed. by G. W. Nickisson, “Elephant-Shooting in Ceylon”, in , vol. XXXIII, no. CXCVII

page 562: ...if the first shot does not drop him, and he rushes on, the second will be a very hurried and most likely ineffectual one...

page 568 ...with a single shot he dropped him like a master of the art.

* 1892 , Alexander A. A. Kinloch, Large Game Shooting in Thibet, the Himalayas, Northern and Central India , page 126

As with all other animals, a shot behind the shoulder is the most likely to drop the beast on the spot

* 1921 , Daniel Henderson, Boone of the Wilderness , page 54

He dropped the beast with a bullet in its heart.

* 1985 , (Beastie Boys), :

The piano player's out, the music stopped / His boy had beef, and he got dropped ...

* 1992, Dan Parkinson, Dust on the Wind , page 164

With a quick clench of the fist on Joey's throat, Bodie dropped him. The man crumpled to the ground

(linguistics) To fail to write, or (especially) to pronounce (a syllable, letter etc.).

(cricket, of a fielder) To fail to make a catch from a batted ball that would have lead to the batsman being out.

(slang) To swallow (a drug), particularly LSD.

to dispose (of); get rid of; to remove; to lose

to eject; to dismiss; to cease to include, as if on a list.

(slang) To impart.

(transitive, music, colloquial) To release to the public.

(music) To play a portion of music in the manner of a disc jockey.

(intransitive, music, colloquial) To enter public distribution.

(music) To tune (a guitar string, etc.) to a lower note.

To cancel or end a scheduled event, project or course

(fast food) To cook, especially by deep-frying or grilling.

(of a voice) To lower in timbre, often relating to puberty.

* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=June 26, author=Genevieve Koski, work=The Onion AV Club

, title= Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe , passage=The 18-year-old Bieber can’t quite pull off the “adult” thing just yet: His voice may have dropped a bit since the days of “Baby,” but it still mostly registers as “angelic,” and veers toward a pubescent whine at times. }}

(of a sound or song) To lower in pitch, tempo, key, or other quality.

(of people) To visit informally; used with in'' or ''by .

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.}}

To give birth to.

to drop a lamb

To cover with drops; to variegate; to bedrop.

* Milton

their waved coats dropped with gold

To hang lower and begin producing sperm due to puberty.