Definition
To prevent something from happening; to obviate or avert.
In Context
- "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)."