Possible Clues:

• Turns away, as one's eyes
• Shields
• Claim that up the street one wards this off
• It wards off the priest up there if one sat around him like that
• Skirts, as disaster
• Thwarts
• Deflects, heads off
• Says 'About time,' when one takes preventive action
• Wards off a backward saint that's reverend up here
• Frustrates vaster distribution