(transitive) To keep away from; to avoid; to abstain from.
(intransitive) To refrain from proceeding; to pause; to delay.
(intransitive) To refuse; to decline; to withsay; to unheed.
(intransitive) To control oneself when provoked.
noun
Alternative spelling of forebear.
[1906] 2004, Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Ethel Wedgwood tr.
Sirs, I am quite sure that the King of England's forbears rightly and justly lost the conquered lands that I hold …
One does not take one’s family name therefrom, and again the position of the mother in that group is determined through her father and his male forbears in turn; this too is a patrilineal group.