evitable : M-W's Word of the Day

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The Word of the Day for January 19 is:

evitable \EV-uh-tuh-bul\ adjective
: capable of being avoided

Example sentence:
"Books, journals, conventions, and electronic networks have made provincial isolation easily evitable." (James Sledd, _English Journal_, November 1994)

Did you know?
T.S. Eliot once gave a lecture in which he spoke about "the disintegration of the intellect" in 19th century Europe, saying, "The 'disintegration' of which I speak may be evitable or inevitable, good or bad; to draw its optimistic or pessimistic conclusions is an occupation for prophets ... of whom I am not one" (quoted in _The New York Times_, May 23, 1994). "Evitable," though not common, has been in English since the beginning of the 16th century; it's often found paired with its opposite, "inevitable," as in Eliot's passage or in a book review by Peter Hebblethwaite (_Manchester Guardian Weekly_, May 4, 1986): "In a work covering such a vast historical ground ... some mistakes were no doubt inevitable. But others were evitable." Both words were borrowed from similar Latin adjectives, which in turn are based on the verb "evitare," which means "to avoid."

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