Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To keep from happening or render unnecessary. synonym: prevent.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To meet.
  • To meet half-way, as difficulties or objections; hence, to meet and dispose of; clear out of the way; remove.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To meet in the way.
  • transitive verb To anticipate; to prevent by interception; to remove from the way or path; to make unnecessary.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To bypass a requirement or make it unnecessary; to avoid a future problem or difficult situation.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb do away with
  • verb prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin obviāre, obviāt-, to hinder, from obvius, in the way; see obvious.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin obviāre ("to block, to hinder").

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Examples

  • Edit: In a (rare) moment of self-doubt I looked up 'obviate' wondering if it's one of those words I've either misheard or used incorrectly.

    Archive 2007-08-01 Jonathan 2007

  • Edit: In a (rare) moment of self-doubt I looked up 'obviate' wondering if it's one of those words I've either misheard or used incorrectly.

    Cityware - an interesting Facebook application Jonathan 2007

  • Of course, the intention of this is allow con members to make informed choices for the Hugo awards; it does not obviate the need to support the authors of this material with real purchases that they get royalty monies for.

    2010 Hugo Award Nominees and download packet « Hyperpat’s HyperDay 2010

  • Perhaps Gardner et al considered £2,480,750 a small price to pay to obviate a formal inquiry into the liquidation of a club he once ran but the CVA certainly leaves many unanswered questions. x-headThe football authorities have invested so much effort into building a case against third-party ownership of players that Sunday's failure to prove wrongdoing at Queen's Park Rangers was a blow for the Football Association.

    Stan Kroenke's offer makes no mention of fate of Arsenal's cash 2011

  • Of course, the intention of this is allow con members to make informed choices for the Hugo awards; it does not obviate the need to support the authors of this material with real purchases that they get royalty monies for.

    2010 May « Hyperpat’s HyperDay 2010

  • In order to obviate that, because money is fungible and budget-cutting is suddenly in vogue, you would think that government agencies would be aggressively trimming noncritical, nonlife-threatening expenditures and diverting scarce resources to genuinely pressing needs.

    Waste And Bad Judgment Sprout At The USDA 2011

  • And if you support a no-exceptions statutory ban on torture, what do you think about the use of mechanisms to obviate or get around the law in exceptional cases – prosecutorial discretion, jury nullification, presidential pardon, etc.?

    The Five Techniques 2009

  • Mr. Obama's jobs bill, which proposes $130 billion of aid for state and local governments, would obviate these reforms and take lawmakers off the hook for goosing workers' pensions in return for their political support.

    Obama's Selective Memory Allysia Finley 2011

  • Any law enforcement agent who conducted a wiretap or private search would thereby always be presumptively guilty of a crime, and would have to cross his fingers and take his chances that prosecutors or jurors would ignore or obviate the law in his particular case.

    The Five Techniques 2009

  • Wikinvest co-founder Parker Conrad asserted in his pitch that Wikinvest and others might eventually obviate the financial services providers that rely on consumers not paying attention, or having opacity drive revenue in their products.

    Ben Mangan: Fintech Leaves Fake-o-nomics Behind Ben Mangan 2011

Comments

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  • to make unnecessary

    August 1, 2009

  • To obviate the risk of serious injury. -Websters Dictionary pg.55

    September 24, 2010

  • If only I could obviate GRE from my Graduate school admission.

    August 12, 2012

  • Imagine if we all started saying this... :)

    January 26, 2018