Definition of "obviate"
obviate
verb
third-person singular simple present obviates, present participle obviating, simple past and past participle obviated
(transitive) To anticipate and prevent or bypass (something which would otherwise have been necessary or required).
Quotations
[…] and in the kindest manner she now urged Fanny’s taking one for the cross and to keep for her sake, saying everything she could think of to obviate the scruples which were making Fanny start back at first with a look of horror at the proposal.
1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter XXVI, in Mansfield Park: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] T[homas] Egerton, […]
The door it was necessary to keep ajar in hers, as in most cottages, because of the smoke; but she obviated the effect of the ribbon of light through the chink by hanging a cloth over that also.
1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter III, in The Woodlanders […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887
(transitive) To avoid (a future problem or difficult situation).
Quotations
If the predisposition to the disease has arisen from a plethoric state of the system, or from a turgescence in the vessels of the head, this is to be obviated by bleeding, both generally and topically, but more particularly the latter; an abstemious diet and proper exercise; and by a seton in the neck.
1842, Gibbons Merle, John Reitch, The Domestic Dictionary and Housekeeper’s Manual: Comprising Everything Related to Cookery, Diet, Economy and Medicine. By Gibbons Merle. The Medical Portion of the Work by John Reitch, M.D., London: William Strange, 21, Paternoster Row, page 360, column 2
A government that thinks it can take on the world with Brexit can’t take back a bereaved teenaged mother with fundamentalist delusions. Moreover, the risk does not obviate two crucial facts in this case. First and foremost, she is a citizen […] Second, when Begum went to Syria she was a child.
2019 February 21, Gary Younge, “Shamima Begum has a right to British citizenship, whether you like it or not”, in The Guardian
adjective
not comparable
(linguistics) Synonym of obviative
Quotations
Colville has a rich deictic system with forms which distinguish, for example, between source and location, with each possibility characterized as proximate and obviate as well (Mattina, 1973).
1995, Michael Darnell, “Preverbal nominals in Colville-Okanagan”, in Pamela Downing, Michael P. Noonan, editors, Word Order in Discourse, page 91
The renovated system involved an obviate-proximate pronominal alternation (yu- vs. mu- respectively in Tolowa; see Bommelyn 1997), with the pronouns coming most likely out of the deictic pronoun system.
1999, Edgar C. Polomé, Carol F. Justus, Winfred Philipp Lehmann, Language Change and Typological Variation: Language change and phonology, page 115