avoidant

comparative more avoidant · superlative most avoidant

1. Exhibiting avoidance; avoiding something.

   Then as the cranes, that to Riphæan mountains Might fly in part, and part towards the sands, These of the frost, those of the sun avoidant, One folk is going, and the other coming,

   1867, Dante Alighieri, “The Divine Comedy”, in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, transl., Purgatorio, volume 2, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, Canto 26, lines 43-46, p. 167

plural avoidants

1. A person who exhibits avoidance.
   1. human sciencesA person who exhibits a dismissive-avoidant or fearful-avoidant attachment style.

      But unlike schizoids, with whom they are sometimes confused, avoidants are actually eager to socialize. The reason they hang back is their worry that they are personally unappealing[…]

      2011, Samuel Barondes, Making Sense of People, page 46