ELUSIVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Elusive

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/ɪlˈusɪv/ Listen

Elusive

adjective

Difficult to describe.

Skillful at eluding capture.

Difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze. Synonym: subtle. "A subtle difference" , "That elusive thing the soul"

Making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe. Synonyms: baffling, knotty, problematic, problematical, tough. "I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast" , "A problematic situation at home"

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"Elusive" Quotes from Famous Books

... instead of serving to elucidate, seemed only more completely to obscure the issue. Mystery revealed itself within mystery, and this was indeed a labyrinth, to the heart of which I sometimes despaired of penetrating. Who was this woman whose elusive figure appeared at every turn in the case? Was she one and the same with the visitor to my cottage who had purloined the green enameled statuette—and could it be that I had actually sat in conversation with her in the coffee-room of the Abbey Inn and had ...

— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... the faithful Fred; Jane Andrews, neat and sensible and plain; Ruby Gillis, looking her handsomest and brightest in a cream silk blouse, with red geraniums in her golden hair; Gilbert Blythe and Charlie Sloane, both trying to keep as near the elusive Anne as possible; Carrie Sloane, looking pale and melancholy because, so it was reported, her father would not allow Oliver Kimball to come near the place; Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, whose round face and objectionable ...

— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... which only occasionally produced what it seemed capable of. He began under the influence of the Parnassiens, but his most characteristic work is as far removed as possible from the plastic objectivity of that school. He pursues the expression of the most elusive sensations, and is so little concerned about clear ideas and precise forms and outlines that even grammatical coherence often fails, and the mind gropes in a mist of unintelligibility—in which direction, however, ...

— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... were searching his very diligently, as though in quest of something elusive; and he gazed serenely back, the most unsuspicious of smiles touching ...

— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... woodsey the ferns smelled! How softly the great feathery boughs of the firs waved and murmured over her! How elfinly rang the bells of the "Tree Lovers"—just a tinkle now and then as the breeze swept by! How purple and elusive the haze where incense was being offered on many an altar of the hills! How the maple leaves whitened in the wind until the grove seemed covered with pale silvery blossoms! Everything was just the same as she had seen it ...

— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

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