Word.ws English Dictionary

elusive

UK/ɪˈl(j)uː.sɪv//ɪˈl(j)u.sɪv/

elusive adjective: evading capture, comprehension or remembrance.

Adjective

elusive (comparative more elusive, superlative most elusive)

  1. Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance.
    • The elusive criminal was arrested
    • The temporary elusive goal / To reach the solace, to feed once more upon the synthetic reaper of loss / No matter the outcome, the cost2002, Meshuggah, Closed Eye Visuals
  2. Difficult to make precise.
    • A precise definition of diarrhea is elusive2010, Robbins & Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease
    • Charley chased the elusive idea through all the nooks and crannies of his drowning consciousness.1910, Jack London, chapter 6, in Lost Face, archived from the original on 14 Apr 2011
  3. Rarely seen.
    • While you're sniffing the trunks of the ponderosas to see if they're butterscotch, vanilla, strawberry, or the elusive chocolate variety, watch for Brown Creepers, an elusive variety of bird.2002, Scott Roederer, Birding: Rocky Mountain National Park, page 93

elusive meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

elusive in Tamil

நழுவித் தப்பித்துக் கொள்கிற, மழுப்புகின்ற, மழுப்புகிற, பிடிபடாத

elusive in Bengali

মনে রাখা কঠিন

elusive in Malayalam

difficult to find, evasive, slippery
പിടികൊടുക്കാത്ത, കണ്ടുകിട്ടാൻ പ്രയാസമായ, തന്ത്രത്തിൽ ഒഴിഞ്ഞുകളയുന്ന, വഴുതിമാറുന്ന, തെന്നിമാറുന്ന, കാണാൻകിട്ടാത്ത
indefinable, intangible, impalpable
അനിർവാച്യം, സ്പർശിക്കാനാവാത്ത, പിടികിട്ടാത്ത, അഗ്രാഹ്യം, അവ്യക്തമായ, ഇന്ദ്രിയഗോചരമല്ലാത്ത

elusive in Kannada

ತಿಳಿಯಲು ಆಗದ, ಗ್ರಹಿಕೆಗೆ ನಿಲುಕದ, ತಪ್ಪಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ, ಜಾರಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ, ನುಣುಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ, ಸಿಕ್ಕದಿರುವ
More languagesFewer languages
elusive in Arabic
متملص mutamalliṣ, مراوغ murāwiḡ
elusive in Persian
گریزان, فراری, مرموز marmuz
elusive in Vietnamese
khó tả

Examples of elusive in a sentence

  • It's the very first time such an elusive bird has been caught on film.
  • The prosecutor offered the lieutenant immunity for all the crimes he would testify having known to be planned by the elusive drug baron.
  • This being the case, proof of cognation remains elusive even in the case of conspicuous lexical lookalikes.

All 40 example sentences with elusive

Synonyms of elusive

Forms of elusive

comparativemore elusive
superlativemost elusive

Origin of elusive

From Latin elusus, past participle of eludo (“to parry a blow, to deceive”).

Words formed from elusive

Questions about elusive

What does elusive mean?
Elusive means evading capture, comprehension or remembrance.
What is elusive in Tamil?
Elusive in Tamil is நழுவித் தப்பித்துக் கொள்கிற, மழுப்புகின்ற, மழுப்புகிற. See Elusive meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is elusive?
Elusive is an adjective.
How do you pronounce elusive?
Elusive is pronounced /ɪˈl(j)uː.sɪv/ (UK).

Words near elusive in the dictionary

  1. elurophobia
  2. elurophobic
  3. Eluru
  4. elusion
  5. elusions
  6. elusive
  7. elusively
  8. elusiveness
  9. elusivenesses
  10. elusivity
  11. elusoriness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: elusive (page history and authors); elusive (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Elusive (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); elusive (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); elusive (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-elusive-illusive.ogg.

Cite this entry: “elusive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/elusive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.