Bypassing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The action of steering clear of a designated route or limitation
2. The act of moving around or away from a standard course or procedure
3. Skipping over or circumventing an established route or rule

Etymology: "Bypassing" is the present participle of "bypass," a verb built from two plain English parts: "by," meaning aside or past, and "pass," to go through or across. The combination describes getting around something rather than going straight through it, and the pairing is old enough that the verb appears in Middle English, where it took forms like "bipassen" and "bypassen" and was probably formed from an earlier past participle, "bipast," meaning "gone by." Because "pass" was already a flexible verb for movement, "bypass" naturally took on a sense of routing around an obstacle. Its meaning widened from literal travel past a place to skipping over a rule, step, or formal channel. That is why "bypassing" now describes sidestepping a standard procedure as easily as driving around a traffic jam.

Synonyms: avoiding, skirting, eluding, circumventing, dodging

Antonyms: confronting, facing, engaging, addressing, encountering