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elusive

adj
/ɪˈl(j)uː.sɪv/UK/ɪˈl(j)u.sɪv/US/ɪˈlʉ.sɪv/

Etymology

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

  1. derived from elusus

Definitions

  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 cost

  2. Difficult to make precise.

    • A precise definition of diarrhea is elusive
    • Charley chased the elusive idea through all the nooks and crannies of his drowning consciousness.

  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.

The neighborhood

Derived

elusively, elusiveness, unelusive

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at elusive. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01elusive02evading03evade04artifice05crafty06sneaky

A definitional loop anchored at elusive. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

6 hops · closes at elusive

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA