evitate

Evitate is an English verb meaning to avoid or evade something. It is rarely used in modern English and is usually encountered in historical texts, linguistic discussions, or as an example of a Romance-derived form. In everyday contemporary prose, speakers would typically use evade, avoid, or evasion. When it appears, evitate often conveys a formal or archaic tone and may appear in dictionaries as a rare or obsolete term rather than as active vocabulary.

Origin and cognates: Evitate stems from Latin evitare, which carried the sense of avoid or shun. The word has close cognates in several Romance languages, including Italian evitare, Spanish evitar, and French éviter. The English form reflects later borrowings from Latin into English, adopting the common -ate verb-forming suffix found in many Romance loanwords.

Usage notes: Evitate is primarily literary or historical and is seldom found in contemporary writing except in discussions of etymology or in translations. Examples tend to feel formal or antiquated: for instance, a sentence might read that a person attempted to evitate consequences, though more natural syntax would use avoid or evade.

Related forms: Commonly related words include evitable (capable of being avoided), evitability or evitability (the quality of being avoidable), evitation (the act of avoiding), and evader (one who evades). The more widely used synonyms in modern English are evade, avoid, and evasion.

Romance-language note: In Italian, evitate is the second-person plural present indicative of evitare and is also used as the imperative for “you all avoid.” Across other languages, similar forms exist, reflecting the shared root in evitare/evitar.