Avoidance

How to spell avoidance

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce avoidance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does avoidance mean?

1. nounThe act of keeping away from or not doing something, often deliberately.

Avoidance in a sentence

• The accountant explained the difference between legal tax avoidance and illegal evasion.

• His constant avoidance of difficult conversations strained the partnership.

Where does avoidance come from?

Language of origin: French

Avoidance is built on the verb avoid, which English took from Anglo-Norman and Old French avoider or esvuidier, meaning to empty out, to clear away, or to make void. That French verb traces back to the Latin idea of vacuus, meaning empty, the same root behind words like vacuum and vacant. In its earliest English use during the 1300s, to avoid something meant to empty or vacate a place, and only later did the sense shift to keeping clear of something or shunning it. The noun avoidance followed naturally with the -ance suffix, which builds an abstract noun naming a state or action, giving us the meaning of the act of staying away from something. The spelling trap lives in the middle and end: the oi vowel cluster and the unstressed -ance ending, which sounds like -unce and tempts writers toward -ence.

How the word is built

• avoid (from Old French esvuidier: to empty out, clear away)
• -ance (noun suffix forming a state or action)