Verb

(shunn)

To avoid, especially persistently.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington

, title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}

To escape (a threatening evil, an unwelcome task etc).

To screen, hide.

To shove, push.

Verb

(en verb)

(transitive, reflexive, obsolete) Keep or withhold oneself.

Refrain from (something); hold one's self aloof; to forbear or keep from doing, especially an indulgence of the passions or appetites.

* Who abstains from meat that is not gaunt? - Shakespeare, Richard II, II-i

(obsolete) Fast.

Deliberately refrain from casting one's vote at a meeting where one is present.

* Not a few abstained from voting. -

(obsolete) Hinder; keep back; withhold.

* Whether he abstain men from marying [sic]. -