Meaning & use
elusive
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Hard to catch, find or keep hold of, because it keeps slipping away.
Grammar: Can come before a noun (an elusive fox) or after be (the fox was elusive).
Patterns
- elusive to someone
The elusive snow leopard is rarely photographed in the wild.
The thief proved elusive, slipping out of every trap the police set.
Sleep stayed elusive all night.
adjectivecomparable
Difficult to achieve, remember or clearly understand.
Grammar: Often describes abstract ideas such as success, meaning or a name on the tip of your tongue.
Patterns
- remain elusive
- prove elusive
A cure for the disease has remained elusive for decades.
The singer's name was elusive, even though I knew her songs.
True happiness can be elusive when you chase it too hard.
Word forms
| comparative | more elusive |
|---|---|
| superlative | most elusive |
Common combinations
- prove elusive
- A winning formula proved elusive for the team.
- remain elusive
- The answer remains elusive.
- elusive goal
- A promotion was her elusive goal for years.
- elusive dream
- Home ownership is an elusive dream for many young people.
- notoriously elusive
- The bird is notoriously elusive in thick forest.
Synonyms and how they differ
- slippery
- Slippery is more informal and often suggests a person who avoids a straight answer, while elusive is more neutral.
- evasive
- Evasive describes someone deliberately avoiding a question or duty, whereas elusive can describe things that are simply hard to pin down.
- intangible
- Intangible means it cannot be touched or measured, which is different from being hard to catch.
- hard to pin down
- Hard to pin down is a casual phrase that fits ideas and people, and is less formal than elusive.
Opposites
Word family
- elude verb
- to escape from or avoid someone or something
- elusively adverb
- in a hard-to-catch way
- elusiveness noun
- the quality of being hard to catch or grasp
- elusion noun
- the act of escaping (rare)
Commonly confused: elusive or illusive?
elusive vs illusive
Illusive means deceptive or based on illusion, while elusive means difficult to catch; the two are often mixed up because they sound alike.
Practice
For years the cure for the disease remained ___.
Choose one answer.
Elusive fits because researchers could not reach the cure despite effort. Obvious would mean easy to see, which contradicts the long search.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “elusive”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.