Meaning of avoid like the plague | Babel Free

Definitions

To evade or shun, if at all possible.

Equivalents

Examples

“Cliché should be avoided like the plague.”

“I’m one of those people who avoids confrontations like the plague.”

“It is the country of countries where the people pass their lives in enjoying the dolce far niente. Hard work is a thing they hate, and carefully avoid like the plague.”

“Without posing as experts, we believe that the first essential to the efficient teacher of the young is a sense of direction, and that the danger to avoid like the plague is the patronage of the child. In both these respects, musicians in charge of orchestral concerts for children in this country fail miserably.”

“Evening dress was barred, because you were all "good pals" and didn't want to look like the "boring people" who were to be avoided like the plague and only asked to the big evenings, which were given as seldom as possible and then only if it would amuse the painter or make the musician better known.”

“A lot of things I'd like to talk about and I'm avoiding like the plague.”

“[A] movement has historic meaning only insofar as it puts itself on the side of human dignity and the protection of life, even of the lives most unworthy of such respect. A revolution is interesting insofar as it avoids like the plague the plague it promised to heal.”

CEFR level