It's the Word of the Day podcast for October 10th.
Today's word is obviate, spelled O-B-V-I-A-T-E.
Obviate is a verb.
To obviate something, usually a need for something or a necessity, is to anticipate and prevent it.
A formal word, obviate can also mean to make an action unnecessary.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Fortune.
In 1987, a new kind of computer workstation debuted from Sun Microsystems.
These workstations, as well as increasingly powerful desktop computers from IBM and Apple,
obviated the need for specialized Lisp machines.
Within a year, the market for Lisp machines evaporated.
It's most often needs that get obviated.
And a need that's obviated is a need that's been anticipated and prevented.
That sentence may obviate your need to consult the definition again, for example.
Obviate comes ultimately from the Latin adjective obviam, meaning in the way.
And obviating does often involve figuratively putting something in the way,
as when an explanatory sentence placed just so blocks a need to consult a definition.
Obviam is also an ancestor of our adjective Obvious.
Obviate has a number of synonyms in English, including the words prevent,
preclude, and avert, which all can mean to hinder or stop something.
Preclude often implies that a degree of chance was involved in stopping an event,