Obviate

Obviate (pronounced ob-vee-eyt)

(1) To anticipate and prevent or eliminate difficulties, disadvantages etc by effective measures; to render unnecessary.

(2) To avoid a future problem or difficult situation.

(3) In linguistics, as obviative, a grammatical marker that distinguishes a relatively non-salient referent in a given context from a relatively salient (proximate) one.

1590–1600: From the Late Latin obviātus (prevented), past participle of obviāre (to act contrary to; go against; to block; to hinder), second-person plural present active imperative of obviō, derivative of obvius, from the adjective obviam (in the way), the construct being ob (in front of, against) + viam, accusative of via (way).  The noun obviation was from the early fifteenth century obviacioun (encounter, contact, exposure), from the Medieval Latin obviationem (nominative obviatio), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of obviare (act contrary to, go against).  Obviate is a noun & verb, obviator & obviation are nouns, obviated & obviating are verbs and obviative is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is obviates.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles 2011. 

Obviate is sometimes misused.  Only things that have not yet occurred can be obviated; one can obviate a possible future difficulty, but not one which already exists.  For over a century, obviate has attracted the attention of the grammar Nazis and the objection has always been that “obviate the necessity” or “obviate the need” are redundant.  Technically however, these phrases are not redundancies in the sense that “obviate the necessity” is to prevent the necessity from arising, hence to make unnecessary.  Wilson Follett (1887-1963) in Modern American Usage (published posthumously in 1966) took the position that obviate can mean only “make unnecessary” and not “anticipate and prevent” but usage guides since have been less prescriptive, noting the older but still current meaning “to avoid an anticipated difficulty."  Thus, in a sentence like “.. avoiding discussion of these matters can obviate any need for separate communiqués”, the need can be perceived as a difficulty in which case any “need for” is indeed redundant.  There seems no reason to prefer one interpretation to the other because it’s hardly ever the case that meaning can be obscured and the choice should be based on which produces the most elegant sentence.