ELUSIVE

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does elusive mean? 

• ELUSIVE (adjective)
  The adjective ELUSIVE has 4 senses:

1. difficult to describe

2. skillful at eluding capture

3. difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze

4. making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe

  Familiarity information: ELUSIVE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ELUSIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Difficult to describe

Context example:

a haunting elusive odor

Similar:

unidentifiable (impossible to identify)

Derivation:

elude (be incomprehensible to; escape understanding by)

elusiveness (the quality of being difficult to grasp or pin down)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Skillful at eluding capture

Context example:

a cabal of conspirators, each more elusive than the archterrorist

Similar:

artful (marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with cunning or craft)

Derivation:

elude (escape, either physically or mentally)

elusiveness (the quality of being difficult to grasp or pin down)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze

Synonyms:

elusive; subtle

Context example:

that elusive thing the soul

Similar:

impalpable (imperceptible to the senses or the mind)

Derivation:

elude (be incomprehensible to; escape understanding by)

elusiveness (the quality of being difficult to grasp or pin down)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe

Synonyms:

baffling; elusive; knotty; problematic; problematical; tough

Context example:

a problematic situation at home

Similar:

difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)

 Context examples 

It was horrible to see the fierce brutes with foaming mouths and glaring eyes, rushing and grasping, but forever missing their elusive enemies, while arrow after arrow buried itself in their hides.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The elusive feature gives astronomers a unique opportunity to study Neptune’s deep winds, which can’t be directly measured.

(Hubble Sees Neptune's Mysterious Shrinking Storm, NASA)

Black holes between those two extremes have proved elusive.

(Elusive Middleweight Black Hole Found at Center of Giant Star Cluster, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Since then, only Hubble has had the sensitivity in blue light to track these elusive features, which have appeared and faded quickly.

(Hubble Reveals Dynamic Atmospheres of Uranus, Neptune, NASA)

Its association with young terrains suggests the material has erupted from within Europa, but with limited data available, the material's chemical composition has remained elusive.

(NASA Research Reveals Europa's Mystery Dark Material Could Be Sea Salt, NASA)

The sweet meaty taste, thin and elusive almost as a memory, maddened him.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

It was the elusive spirit of poetry itself that he sensed and sought after but could not capture.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But the detailed information required to make accurate estimates of this potential has remained elusive.

(Natural regeneration of tropical forests helps global climate mitigation and forest restoration, NSF)

The pictures have allowed astronomers to identify an elusive stellar corpse buried among filaments of gas left behind by a 2000-year-old supernova explosion.

(Dead Star Circled by Light, ESO)

The rest, the significant majority, is this elusive dark matter that dominates all of the mass in the universe.

(No Winner in Milky Way-Andromeda Clash, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)