Avert
//əˈvɝt// verb
verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Verb
- 1 To turn aside or away. transitive
"I averted my eyes while my friend typed in her password."
- 2 turn away or aside wordnet
- 3 To ward off, or prevent, the occurrence or effects of. transitive
"How can the danger be averted?"
- 4 prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening; to protect from or to keep away anything undesirable; to ward off wordnet
- 5 To turn away. archaic, intransitive
"Cold and averting from our neighbour's good."
Example
More examples"Skillful diplomacy helps to avert war."
Etymology
From Middle English averten, adverten, from Old French avertir (“turn, direct, avert; turn the attention, make aware”), from Latin āvertere, from ad + vertō (“to turn”).
Related phrases
More for "avert"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.