Verb

(en verb)

To stop; to keep (from happening).

I brushed my teeth to prevent them from going yellow.

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=October 1 , author=Tom Fordyce , title=Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Scotland must now hope Georgia produce a huge upset and beat Argentina by at least eight points in Sunday's final Pool B match to prevent them failing to make the last eight for the first time in World Cup history.}}

* 1897 , Henry James, What Maisie Knew :

‘I think you must be mad, and she shall not have a glimpse of it while I'm here to prevent !’

(obsolete) To come before; to precede.

* Bible, 1 Thess. iv. 15

We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

* Book of Common Prayer

We pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us.

* Prior

Then had I come, preventing Sheba's queen.

(obsolete) To outdo, surpass.

* 1596 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , IV.i:

With that he put his spurres vnto his steed, / With speare in rest, and toward him did fare, / Like shaft out of a bow preuenting speed.

(obsolete) To be beforehand with; to anticipate.

* Alexander Pope

their ready guilt preventing thy commands

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.