1. Not avoidable; that cannot be avoided or escaped; inevitable.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 511. If … meere and vnauoidable violence is offered to a godlie man.
1600. E. Blount, trans. Conestaggio, 241. Beeing an vnauoydable passage for the ships that come from the Indies.
a. 1688. Cudworth, Immut. Mor. (1731), 11. The necessary and unavoidable Consequences of this Opinion.
1718. Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett. to C’tess Mar, 10 March. Surprise at her beauty and manner … is unavoidable at the first sight.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, V. xiii. The change of habitation that now seemed unavoidable.
1826. F. Reynolds, Life & Times, II. 406. Within, and without, the walls of his theatre, he has a host of unavoidable enemies.
1885. ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ At Bay, i. You may be sure the delay was unavoidable or I should not have kept you waiting.
2. Law. Not liable to be voided.
1628. Coke, On Litt., 2 b. But if the man of non sane memory recouer his memory, and agree vnto it, it is vnauoydable.
Hence Unavoidableness.
Also, in recent use, unavoidability.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1632), 115. The unavoidablenesse of those former inconveniences.
1653. Gataker, Vind. Annot. Jer., 103. The unavoidablenes of the Evils by these signs portended.
a. 1688. W. Clagett, 17 Serm. (1699), 206. The unavoidableness of heresies in the church.
1894. Current Hist. (Buffalo, N.Y.), IV. 900. Francis Joseph, convinced of the unavoidableness of the proposed reforms, supported his ministers steadfastly.
