What is the difference between avoid and prevent

For example, it may have been avoided by:. On the other hand, "avoided" implies that the actions taken to circumnavigate the incident would have been last minute, or unplanned. They could be used as synonyms, and are fairly interchangeable although one usually feels more natural to speak. So traffic lights are installed to prevent traffic jams while traffic police is there to avoid traffic jams i. To Me, You prevent something before it actually happens consideration leads to prevention , in case you are inconsiderate about something, and it happens, then you will regret and say that it could have been avoidable.

The only difference is the direction of the relation. Separately, the relation of cause to effect is the same as the relation of effect to cause with direction inversed. In other words,. In other words, you could pick either sentence and they mean the exact same thing. In China at present, the Chinese government are taking measures to prevent further spread of the corona flu virus i.

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. The difference between "prevent" and "avoid" Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 8 months ago. Active 1 year, 9 months ago.

Viewed 44k times. What are you wearing? How did you know? I read your mind. Prevent someone from doing something. Avoid can also mean to stop bad things from happening. Accidents for example. We need to keep our cars in good repair and we need drive carefully. These are things we can do to prevent and to avoid accidents. But if we see an accident up ahead we might swerve our car to avoid it, steer it in another direction, so we keep out of the way.

Prevent is just about stopping something happening, but avoid can also mean keeping away from something. Oh, good idea. When we avoid something, we try not to go near it. So what did you think of my presentation?

I want to know what you thought of my presentation. Stop avoiding the question. You pronounced the name of the product wrongly Really? Eight times. The customer complained. But never mind. What did you think of your presentation?

Do you remember the two structures we use with prevent? Here you are. Notice prevent is always followed by a noun. Why not try these? The arrival of the police prevented crime. His hand prevented the cup falling. Losing my passport prevented me from flying. I avoided the slap easily. I avoided being discovered by hiding. Begin activity. Help Close. Activity Test your understanding of this lesson with our quiz! Hint If you aren't sure, have a look at the lesson again.

Continue the activity. Question 1 of 3 Help. Choose the correct statement below. Check my answer. Hint Look for clues in the sentence. Did we stop the door or miss it? Question 2 of 3 Help.

Hint You can prevent something, prevent something happening or prevent someone from doing something. Question 3 of 3 Help. Which of these is NOT correct? Congratulations you completed the Quiz Excellent! Great job! Bad luck!