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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

eschew.

To avoid; to shun, to shy away from.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ɛsˈt͡ʃuː/UK/ɪsˈt͡ʃuː/UK/ɪʃˈt͡ʃuː/UK/ɛsˈt͡ʃu/US
  1. To avoid; to shun, to shy away from.

    formal · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English eschewen, from Anglo-Norman eschiver, (third-person present eschiu), from Frankish *skiuhijan (“to dread, shun, avoid”); thus a doublet of skew. For the pronunciation with /ʃ/, compare the development of marshal from Middle English marschal (/marsˈt͡ʃaːl/) or Middle English myssheve, variant of myschef (“hardship”). Variants in /sk/ are either from unattested Middle English *eskewen (from Old Northern French eskiver; compare skew) or are spelling pronunciations. See also French esquiver.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.