different between avoid vs foil

English

Etymology

From Middle English avoiden, from Anglo-Norman avoider, Old French esvuidier (“to empty out”), from es- + vuidier, from Vulgar Latin *vocit?re < *vocitus < *vocivus, ultimately related to Latin vacuus. Displaced native Middle English mithe, which was cognate with Dutch mijden and with German meiden, vermeiden.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??v??d/
• Hyphenation: a?void
• Rhymes: -??d

Verb

avoid (third-person singular simple present avoids, present participle avoiding, simple past and past participle avoided)

1. (transitive) to try not to meet or communicate with (a person); to shun
2. (transitive) to make sth miss s.o.; to give way

   I avoided the slap easily. I avoided meeting my ex.

3. to keep away from; to keep clear of; to stay away from

   I try to avoid the company of gamblers.

   • 1637, John Milton, Comus, London: Humphrey Robinson, p. 13,^[1]

     What need a man forestall his date of griefe

     And run to meet what he would most avoid?

   • 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, Volume 3, Chapter 13, p. 309,^[2]

     He still hoped that he might be able to win some chiefs who remained neutral; and he carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility.
4. To try not to do something or to have something happen
5. (transitive, obsolete) To make empty; to clear.
   • c. 1395,, Wycliffe Bible, Ecclesiasticus 13:6:

     If thou haue, he shal lyue with thee, and auoide thee out ; and he shal not sorewen vpon thee.

6. (transitive, now law) To make void, to annul; to refute (especially a contract).
   • 1395, Wycliffe Bible, Galatians 3:17,^[3]

     But Y seie, this testament is confermed of God; the lawe that was maad after foure hundrid and thritti yeer, makith not the testament veyn to auoide awei the biheest.

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, A View of the State of Ireland, Dublin: John Morrisson, 1809, reprint of the 1633 edition, p. 233,^[4]

     […] how can those graunts of the Kings be avoyded, without wronging of those lords, which had those lands and lordships given them?

7. (transitive, law) To defeat or evade; to invalidate.
   • 1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Dublin: John Exshaw et al., 4th edition, 1771, Volume 3, Chapter 20, p. 310,^[5]

     […] in an action for trespassing upon land whereof the plaintiff is seised, if the defendant shews a title to the land by descent, and that therefore he had a right to enter, and gives colour to the plaintiff, the plaintiff may either traverse and totally deny the fact of the descent; or he may confess and avoid it, by replying, that true it is that such descent happened, but that since the descent the defendant himself demised the lands to the plaintiff for term of life.

8. (transitive, obsolete) To emit or throw out; to void.
   • 1577, Richard Eden (translator), The History of Trauayle in the West and East Indies [De Orbo Novo, Decades 1-3] by Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, London, “Of the ordinary nauigation from Spayne to the west Indies,” p. 224b,^[6]

     […] the citie of Memi, where is a great Caue or Denne, in the whiche is a spryng or fountayne that contynually auoydeth a great quantitie of Bitumen […]

   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, London: E. Dod, Book 3, Chapter 13, p. 136,^[7]

     […] a Toad pisseth not, nor doe they containe those urinary parts which are found in other animals, to avoid that serous excretion […]

9. (transitive, obsolete) To leave, evacuate; to leave as empty, to withdraw or come away from.
   • 1565, Thomas Stapleton (translator), The History of the Church of Englande. Compiled by Venerable Bede, Englishman, Antwerp, Book 5, Chapter 20, pp. 178b-179,^[8]

     […] the bishop commaunded al to auoide the chambre for an houre, and beganne to talke after this manner to his chaplin […]

   • 1587, Raphael Holinshed et al., The First and Second Volumes of Chronicles, “Henrie the third,” p. 202,^[9]

     This yeare also was a proclamation made in London, and throughout all the realme, that all strangers should auoid the land before the feast of saint Michaell then next following except those that came with merchandize.

   • 1627, Francis Bacon, New Atlantis, London, c. 1658, p. 7,^[10]

     Whereupon six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided the Room.

10. (transitive, obsolete) To get rid of.
    • 1395, Wycliffe Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:11,^[11]

      Whanne Y was a litil child, Y spak as a litil child, Y vndurstood as a litil child, Y thouyte as a litil child; but whanne Y was maad a man, Y auoidide tho thingis that weren of a litil child.

    • 1587, Raphael Holinshed et al., The First and Second Volumes of Chronicles, “The oration of king Richard the third to the chiefteins of his armie,” p. 756,^[12]

      […] expell out of your thoughts all douts, auoid out of your minds all feare; and like valiant champions aduance foorth your standards […]

    • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act I, Scene 1,^[13]

      […] the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it.

11. (intransitive, obsolete) To retire; to withdraw, depart, go away.
    • c. 1526, Tyndale Bible, Matthew 4:8-10,^[14]

      The devyll […] sayde to hym: all these will I geue ye, if thou wilt faull doune and worship me. Then sayde Iesus unto hym. Avoyd Satan.

    • c. 1607, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act IV, Scene 5,^[15]

      Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other station; here’s no place for you; pray you, avoid:

    • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, 1 Samuel 18:11,^[16]

      And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.

12. (intransitive, obsolete) To become void or vacant.

Usage notes

• This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing). See Appendix:English catenative verbs

Synonyms

• (to keep away from): See Thesaurus:avoid

Derived terms

• avoid like the plague
• avoidable
• avoidance
• avoider

Translations

Further reading

• avoid at OneLook Dictionary Search

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f??l/
• Rhymes: -??l

Etymology 1

From Middle English foil, foille, from Old French fueille (“plant leaf”), from Late Latin folia, the plural of folium, mistaken as a singular feminine. Doublet of folio and folium.

Noun

foil (countable and uncountable, plural foils)

1. A very thin sheet of metal.
2. (uncountable) Thin aluminium/aluminum (or, formerly, tin) used for wrapping food.

3. A thin layer of metal put between a jewel and its setting to make it seem more brilliant.
4. (authorship, figuratively) In literature, theatre/theater, etc., a character who helps emphasize the traits of the main character and who usually acts as an opponent or antagonist.
5. (figuratively) Anything that acts by contrast to emphasise the characteristics of something.

   • As she a black silk cap on him begun / To set, for foil of his milk-white to serve.

   • 1725-1726, William Broome, The Odyssey

     Hector has also a foil to set regard

6. (fencing) A very thin sword with a blunted (or foiled) tip
   • 1784-1810, William Mitford, History of Greece

     Socrates contended with a foil against Demosthenes with a sword.

7. A thin, transparent plastic material on which marks are made and projected for the purposes of presentation. See transparency.
8. (heraldry) A stylized flower or leaf.
9. A hydrofoil.
10. An aerofoil/airfoil.

Synonyms

• (thin aluminium/aluminum): aluminium foil, silver foil, silver paper, tin foil

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

foil (third-person singular simple present foils, present participle foiling, simple past and past participle foiled)

1. (transitive) To cover or wrap with foil.

Etymology 2

From Middle English foilen (“spoil a scent trail by crossing it”), from Old French fouler (“tread on, trample”), ultimately from Latin full? (“I trample, I full”).

Verb

foil (third-person singular simple present foils, present participle foiling, simple past and past participle foiled)

1. To prevent (something) from being accomplished.

2. To prevent (someone) from accomplishing something.

   • And by mortal man at length am foil'd.
3. To blunt; to dull; to spoil.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Addison to this entry?)

4. (obsolete) To tread underfoot; to trample.
   • 1603, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes

     King Richard […] caused the ensigns of Leopold to be pulled down and foiled underfoot.

   • Whom he did all to pieces breake and foyle, / In filthy durt, and left so in the loathely soyle.

Synonyms

• (prevent from being accomplished): put the kibosh on, scupper, thwart

Translations

Noun

foil (plural foils)

1. Failure when on the point of attainment; defeat; frustration; miscarriage.
   • 1685, John Dryden, Threnodia Augustalis

     Nor e'er was fate so near a foil.

2. One of the incorrect answers presented in a multiple-choice test.

Etymology 3

From French foulis.

Noun

foil (plural foils)

1. (hunting) The track of an animal.

Synonyms

• (track of an animal): spoor

Translations

Etymology 4

From mnemonic acronym FOIL (“First Outside Inside Last”).

Verb

foil (third-person singular simple present foils, present participle foiling, simple past and past participle foiled)

1. (mathematics) To expand a product of two or more algebraic expressions, typically binomials.

Translations

Etymology 5

See file.

Verb

foil (third-person singular simple present foils, present participle foiling, simple past and past participle foiled)

1. (obsolete) To defile; to soil.

Anagrams

• Filo, LIFO, filo, lo-fi, lofi

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Latin folium. Compare fueille, from the plural of folium, folia.

Noun

foil m (oblique plural fouz or foilz, nominative singular fouz or foilz, nominative plural foil)

1. leaf (green appendage of a plant which photosynthesizes)