Skip to main content
avoidance

avoidance

39 3.7
Keeping away from something or stopping it from happening
  • noun
  • /əˈvɔɪdəns/
translation icon : evitación
  • The patient's avoidance of social situations was a clear sign of anxiety.
  • avoidance behavior
  • avoidance of conflict
  • avoidance of criticism

No, no, it is avoidance of a bad, terrible feeling.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • You are lowering your resilience to stress through avoidance and that is not the goal.

  • Similarly, the avoidance of human suffering is not to be confused with individual liberty itself.

    Academic text (1999)
  • If the other group was not to do that, there would be an avoidance of social costs.

  • It's being used as escape and avoidance of the actual topic.

  • I think avoidance is often more harmful than the problem.

  • Successful species conservation has often been defined as simply the avoidance of extinction.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Both individual liberty and avoidance of human suffering are part of the moral minimum of decent modern societies.

    Academic text (1999)
  • So avoidance behavior would reduce pathogen exposure as well.

  • Last night, we simulated a daily teenage ritual, homework avoidance.

  • They continuously work on all sorts of disaster avoidance and recovery mechanisms.

Synonyms

prevention
vsavoidance
221 2.4

Stopping something harmful from happening

also covers keeping distance from things rather than only stopping causes
turning away
vsavoidance
11 5.8

Choosing to avoid someone or to stop something from happening

emphasizes keeping physical or emotional distance rather than stopping events
evasive action
vsavoidance
6 4.9

A quick move to avoid danger

covers both staying away and broader prevention measures
evasion
vsavoidance
5 6.3

A quick movement that lets someone escape being caught

is broader, including passive moving away, not just escape tactics
dodging
vsavoidance
2 5.0

A quick movement to avoid someone or something, for example a ball

is more general, including long term distance or prevention
shunning
vsavoidance
1 7.2

Not talking to or seeing someone on purpose to show you are unhappy with them

is wider, covering many ways of staying away beyond social exclusion
distancing
vsavoidance
1 4.8

Making less emotional or social contact with someone

focuses more generally on keeping away or preventing events, not emotions
abstention
vsavoidance
1 7.2

Choosing not to take part in something, often giving up pleasures like alcohol

is more about general keeping away or prevention, not principled refusal
averting
vsavoidance
5.8

Stopping something bad from happening

focuses more on staying away rather than taking direct preventive steps
eschewal
vsavoidance
  • Formal
9.9

A choice to avoid something on purpose

is broader, covering both distance and stopping actions, not only refusal by rule
forestalling
vsavoidance
8.3

Stopping something before it happens by acting early

is less about planning ahead and more about physical or social withdrawal
obviation
vsavoidance
  • Formal
9.9

To stop problems before they happen by planning ahead

focuses more on keeping away rather than making problems unnecessary

Antonyms

418 2.9

Taking part in an activity, group, or discussion

78 3.9

Taking part in a group's activities

Compounds

tax avoidance
  • Specialized
4 3.4

To reduce the tax you must pay by using methods allowed by law

conditioned avoidance
  • Specialized
7.5

A learned action that lets a person or animal move away before something unpleasant happens

A learned action an animal or person does to avoid something bad after a warning signal

How Avoidant

shunning
1 7.2
avoidance
39 3.7
evasion
5 6.3
caution
158 2.5
engagement
78 3.9

Surface Forms

avoidance singular
avoidances plural

Morphology

avoidance = avoid (transparent) = avoid + ance

Standard nominalization from the verb 'avoid' using '-ance' meaning 'the action or state of avoiding'.

Etymology

Avoidance comes from older words that meant to make a space or 'empty' something and is related to the English word void ('empty'); so avoidance is the action of staying away from something or keeping it out.