Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To anticipate and dispose of effectively; render unnecessary. See Synonyms at prevent.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To meet.
- To meet half-way, as difficulties or objections; hence, to meet and dispose of; clear out of the way; remove.
Wiktionary
- v. To bypass a requirement or make it unnecessary.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To meet in the way.
- v. To anticipate; to prevent by interception; to remove from the way or path; to make unnecessary.
WordNet 3.0
- v. do away with
- v. prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening
Etymologies
- Latin obviāre, obviāt-, to hinder, from obvius, in the way; see obvious.
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.”
“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.”
“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.?”
“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.”
The Guardian: Stan Kroenke's offer makes no mention of fate of Arsenal's cash
“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.”
“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.”
The Huffington Post: Ben Mangan: Fintech Leaves Fake-o-nomics Behind
“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.”
“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.”
“Do you believe that the use of prosecutorial discretion, jury nullification, the necessity defense, executive clemency and any other mechanisms that are available to obviate or circumvent criminal statutes is unethical in all cases, without exception? and, uh, things like executive clemency are all firmly within the law.”
Matthew Yglesias » Conservatives’ Unhinged Attacks on Nancy Pelosi
“Mostly, I've narrowed it down to Lakeside or Cuernavaca, though my mind, regrettably, isn't narrow enough to obviate any changes that may include somewhere else.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘obviate’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 314 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 414 more...
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June Words
Words for June
connive, incessant, premeditated, malice, malicious, spite, vindictive, vindicate, vengeance, obstinately, assiduous, attentive and 14 more...
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Words for Anna
exacerbate, pixilate, obviate, placate, titilate, interpolate, perambulate, vacillate, abnegate, indignant, perpetrate, conjure and 7 more...
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For Summer
analogous, prestidigitation, defenestrate, crux, supercilious, sunglasses, replete, foment, anthropomorphic, iota, intrinsic, prosaic and 29 more...
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ob-
to; toward; before; opposed to; against; upon; over
Note: can change formobsequious, object, obnoxiousobfuscate, obnoxious, objurgate, omission, occur, offer, oppose, opposition, obtuse, obstruct and 11 more...
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Bright Folk
Some words I come across in my legal studies, though not really legal jargon. And the usage doesn't shout, "hey, I think I'm smart", just simply, "this is what applies in this context."
verbose, inter alia, ostentatious, usurp, presumptuous, anachronistic, unfettered, sine qua non, amenable, subversive, irreducible, penumbra and 27 more...
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try to use now and then
exacerbate, inveterate, obviate, verbose, subterfuge, exasperate, disingenuous, squit, ingenue, Opiate, opioid, revile and 2 more...
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September Words-11337
During the month of September, post at least 10 new words to this list. Make sure you cite where you read the word (book/author/pg) and quote the context/sentence where you found it. If someone has...
flabbergasted, discombobulated, inclination, serendipity, savvy, profound, incarnation, myriad, confiscate, audacity, deciduous, adieu and 79 more...
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Wuthering Heights List 4
Ten words used in Wuthering Heights
copious, benevolent, stupefied, obviate, vapid, melancholy, discerned, obscurely, tenacious, sentinel
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GREs
supplicate, insidious, hermeneutic, salubrious, perfidious, opprobrium, obviate, vitiate

lweber5@scf.edu To obviate the risk of serious injury. -Websters Dictionary pg.55 Sep 23, 2010
sweetzingiber to make unnecessary Jul 31, 2009