Avocation, n.
Etymology: [L. avocatio.]
1. A calling away; a diversion. [Obs. or Archaic] Impulses to duty, and powerful avocations from sin. South.
2. That which calls one away from one's regular employment or vocation. Heaven is his vocation, and therefore he counts earthly employments avocations. Fuller. By the secular cares and avocations which accompany marriage the clergy have been furnished with skill in common life. Atterbury.
Note: In this sense the word is applied to the smaller affairs of life, or occasional calls which summon a person to leave his ordinary or principal business. Avocation (in the singular) for vocation is usually avoided by good writers.
3. pl.
1 more senses
Pursuits; duties; affairs which occupy one's time; usual employment; vocation. There are professions, among the men, no more favorable to these studies than the common avocations of women. Richardson. In a few hours, above thirty thousand men left his standard, and returned to their ordinary avocations. Macaulay. An irregularity and instability of purpose, which makes them choose the wandering avocations of a shepherd, rather than the more fixed pursuits of agriculture. Buckle.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for avocation; he lists it under business.
Where he writes about it:
An avocation is what calls one away from other work; a vocation or calling, that to which one is called by some special fitness or sense of duty; thus, we speak of the gospel ministry as a vocation or calling, rather than a business. — from business