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avert/avoid

Alish_a

Member
Russian - Ukrainian
Hello to everyone!
Could you, please, explain me the difference between these two word above in word combinations like 'to avoid a car crash' and 'to aver a car crash'? I guess 'to avert' means to prevent a crach from occuring, while 'to avoid' is the same as to shun or to escape a crash. Am I right?
It is my task for English lesson to find the difference between these two phrases, so it's the only example I have. My teacher said it's one significient difference between them, but, maybe, you're right and she's mistaken or she provided us with the wrong example.
There could be one difference: "avoid a car crash" could mean two thing, either to prevent/avert a collision or to move away from a crash that has already occurred, to move away from an existing crash site.
There is a difference.

I averted the car crash - I prevented it from happening
I avoided the car crash - It happened, but I managed not to be a part of it

whereas
I averted a car crash - I prevented a car crash from happening
I avoided a car crash - could mean my actions prevented a crash from happening or there was a car crash, but I kept out of it.
An examjple where avoid cannot be replaced by avert:

To avoid the crowds, he did not go to the centre of town on Saturday afternoons.
Avert would make no sense here since it does not mean "to keep out of the way of".
An example where avert cannot be replaced by avoid:

It would be more useful to work this out yourself. Hint: you do this if you stop looking at someone, e.g. "So that she woudn't notice him looking at her, he xxxxxx his xxxxx."
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