ə̇ˈvād, ēˈ- verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: Middle French & Latin; Middle French evader, from Latin evadere, from e- + vadere to go, walk — more at wade
intransitive verb
1. : to slip away : give someone the slip
submariners have always despised the need to evade in order to escape — S.D.Cutter
2. : to take refuge in evasion : use craft or stratagem in avoidance : avoid facing up to something
wisdom consists … in learning when to evade , when to stave off, and when to oppose head on — Irving Howe
the adult who regresses to the infantile … evades — H.A.Overstreet
transitive verb
1.
a.
(1) : to get away from (a pursuer or enemy) by dexterity or stratagem : avoid capture by : shun or avoid contact or confrontation with : elude , escape , avoid
evaded the police and crossed the border into safety
he … tried to evade her kisses — Winifred Bambrick
guiltily evaded her accusing look
(2) : to avoid facing up to (a fact or condition)
though she knew … her father would never be up again, she united with her mother in evading the fact — Ellen Glasgow
prefers to evade home truths … by saying what he does not really mean — Va. Quarterly Review
b.
(1) : to manage to avoid the preformance of (an obligation) : escape from doing or experiencing (something disagreeable) : circumvent , dodge
I have a horror of the men who evaded service during the war — Rose Macaulay
the French had been limited to a hundred thousand troops … but they had managed … to evade this limit — Upton Sinclair
several very safe and easy methods of evading the law — Adam Smith
specifically : to fail to pay or to minimize (taxes) in violation of law
served a term … for evading his income tax — H.H.Martin
(2) : to get around (an intellectual obstacle)
the traditional way of evading the difficulty … is to have recourse to … “vitalism” — A.N.Whitehead
c. : to avoid answering directly (as a question or a questioner) : turn aside : parry
tried to evade his query but he was not to be put off
tried to evade this nonsensical demand — Alfred Burmeister
2. : baffle , elude : be baffling or elusive to
the simple, personal meaning evaded them — C.D.Lewis
Synonyms: see escape