transitive. To check or restrain; to ward off, repel. Also with away, off. Now rare or Obsolete.

transitive. To oppose, resist, withstand. Also, to prevent; to ward off.

To prevent the occurrence of (an action, event), to guard against (some inconvenience). Obsolete.

figurative. transitive. To divert (a happening, an experience, one's thoughts, etc.); to avert (a catastrophe). Cf. main senses 12 23b.

To avert, keep away or off, prevent; esp. in deprecatory phrase God (etc.) forfend; often with sentence as object; also absol. as an exclamation. ar…

To turn aside (literal and figurative). To avert.

To prevent the coming-on of.

transitive (transferred and figurative). To turn aside the course or tendency, or interrupt the progress, of (an action, design, feeling, etc.); to…

transitive. Physics. Of a medium, substance, object, etc.: to deflect the course of (light rays), esp. when they enter the medium, etc., at an…

to avert.

transitive. To avert beforehand; to prevent. Obsolete.

To turn away anything about to befall, esp. things threatened or feared; to prevent the incidence or occurrence of; to ward off.

To turn aside (a process, action, text, etc.) from a correct state, course, or aim. transitive. To deflect, divert from a regular course. Now rare.

To keep off, avert. Obsolete. rare.

To avert, ward off.

figurative. Chiefly to stave off. To ward off (something undesirable or hurtful); to prevent the occurrence or event of; to keep back, delay. Also…

Technical uses with adverbs. to stop off = senses 21a 23b 24a. Now rare or Obsolete.