Meaning of stave off | Babel Free

Definitions

To prevent something from happening; to obviate or avert.

idiomatic

Equivalents

Examples

“He drank plenty of orange juice, hoping to stave off the cold making the rounds at the office.”

“[Enid] answer'd with such craft as women use, / Guilty or guiltless, to stave off a chance / That breaks upon them perilously, […]”

“LANCE: Only through my training as a sex machine am I able to stave off genital turgidity.”

“So it was perhaps political backlash from the trebling of public transport times between Harlech to Porthmadog if buses took over that staved off immediate talks of closure and the release of a £241,000 subsidy (2020: £3.8m).”

CEFR level