Verb

(en verb)

(ambitransitive) To reject disdainfully; contemn; scorn.

* Shakespeare

to spurn at your most royal image

* Shakespeare

What safe and nicely I might well delay / By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn .

* John Locke

Domestics will pay a more cheerful service when they find themselves not spurned because fortune has laid them at their master's feet.

To reject something by pushing it away with the foot.

* Shakespeare

I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.

To waste; fail to make the most of (an opportunity)

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=September 28 , author=Tom Rostance , title=Arsenal 2 - 1 Olympiakos , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Marouane Chamakh then spurned a great chance to kill the game off when he ran onto Andrey Arshavin's lofted through ball but shanked his shot horribly across the face of goal.}}

(obsolete) To kick or toss up the heels.

* Chaucer

The miller spurned at a stone.

* Gay

The drunken chairman in the kennel spurns .

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.