elusive

elusive — adjective

1. describing someone or something that keeps escaping your efforts — whether you a

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

describing someone or something that keeps escaping your efforts — whether you are trying to catch them physically, understand an idea, achieve a goal, or recall a memory.

Example

The snow leopard is an elusive animal native to the mountains of Central Asia.

elusive + animal

Shirin spent years chasing an elusive cure for the rare disease affecting her village.

elusive + goal / cure

Common collocations
  • elusive + noun: elusive goal, elusive concept, elusive answer, elusive prey, elusive memory
  • remain + elusive
  • prove + elusive
  • frustratingly elusive
  • notoriously elusive
  • elusive to + [person]
Synonyms
  • evasive

    More active and deliberate — a person who is evasive is actively dodging questions or blame, whereas elusive can be neutral.

  • slippery

    Informal; suggests clever escape or avoidance, often of a person who keeps getting away.

  • fleeting

    Emphasises briefness rather than difficulty — something that disappears quickly, not necessarily through active evasion.

  • intangible

    Strictly abstract; for concepts without physical form, lacking the sense of active resistance that elusive carries.

Antonyms
  • obvious

    Easily noticed or understood; the opposite of hard to grasp.

  • accessible

    Easy to reach or obtain; the opposite of hard to achieve or find.

  • clear

    Easily understood; the opposite of hard to comprehend.

Grammar Patterns

elusive + noun

be/remain + elusive

elusive to + someone (less common)

Usage Note

Frequently placed before a noun (attributive) or after a linking verb (predicative) such as 'remain', 'prove', or 'feel'. The word implies that the target actively resists or evades your efforts — it is not merely difficult, but persistently out of reach.

Common Mistakes

The answer was elusive to find.
The answer was elusive.
'elusive' already means 'difficult to find'; adding 'to find' is redundant.
The magician created an elusive image.
The magician created an illusive image.
'elusive' means hard to catch or grasp; 'illusive' means deceptive or unreal. These are easily confused.

Word family

  • elude
    verbB2
  • elusively
    adverbC1
  • elusiveness
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

While elusive, evasive, slippery, fleeting, and intangible all describe something that is hard to pin down, each has a distinct focus. Elusive is the broadest — it can describe a physically hard-to-catch animal, a difficult-to-understand idea, an unachievable goal, or a name that stays on the tip of your tongue. Evasive implies active dodging, especially of people avoiding questions or responsibility: 'The politician gave evasive answers during the debate.' Slippery is informal and suggests clever, repeated escape: 'a slippery criminal who has outrun the police three times.' Fleeting emphasises briefness over difficulty: 'a fleeting glimpse of the comet before it vanished behind the clouds.' Intangible is limited to non-physical things and lacks the connotation of active resistance: 'the intangible rewards of volunteering, such as a sense of purpose.' Use elusive when the difficulty comes from the target actively or frustratingly staying out of reach; use fleeting when the barrier is simply that it disappears too quickly.

evasive ↗slippery ↗fleeting ↗intangible ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

  • frustratingly elusive
  • notoriously elusive
  • famously elusive
  • equally elusive
  • increasingly elusive

Phrases

  • prove elusive
  • remain elusive
  • an elusive quality
  • the elusive nature of

Prepositions

  • elusive to
  • elusive for

Etymology

LatinEnglish

Elusive was formed in English in the early 1700s from the Latin past participle elus- (the stem of eludere, meaning 'to evade, escape, or mock') combined with the English suffix -ive, which turns verbs into adjectives meaning 'tending to.' The Latin eludere itself comes from ex- ('out, away') and ludere ('to play'), so the original image was of a playful escape — tricking someone by slipping out of reach.