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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
elusive
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ Pressure on staff resources also continues to increase, and the goal posts remain as elusive as ever.
▪ It is hard to pin down something as elusive as a good school climate.
▪ For it is the personality of Law that has remained as elusive to historians as it was to his own contemporaries.
▪ Drug dealers can prove just as elusive.
▪ He's at least five years younger than her and he has an ironic smile as elusive as hers is guileless.
▪ But Arthur's success remains as elusive as the court of the Faerie Queene.
▪ Victory for the Allies remained as elusive as ever, despite some 250,000 casualties.
more
▪ Wet sand can be moulded, whilst dry sand is much more elusive.
▪ As Christmas drew nearer, sleep became more elusive.
▪ She was cleverer than either of them, more elusive, more fragile.
▪ But all attempts to harness and control this most perplexing of natural phenomena have proven far more elusive.
▪ Indices of success in compliance systems are more elusive for field staff to attain than in sanctioning systems.
▪ The customers spilled all over the place; the electricity proved more elusive.
▪ But what she has come up with in Jazz is wilder, more elusive than in any previous work.
▪ However, we spotted its calf frisking among the trees and it was more elusive.
most
▪ Organising yourself Of all study skills, perhaps the most elusive is the ability to organise and manage time effectively.
▪ Culture is the most important yet most elusive dimension of work.
▪ That, of all people, the most elusive one should suddenly materialise to help her.
▪ The most elusive culprit remains the built-in contradictions of the capitalist system.
so
▪ This enabled the establishment of a critical position in relation to science which for Adorno remained so elusive.
▪ This reflects Warltire's peripatetic way of life, which in turn explains why precise biographical details are so elusive.
So much so that I think the time has come to discard those tests which have proved so elusive.
▪ It was the cure that was so elusive.
■ NOUN
quality
▪ Looking at the might-have-beens of stylistic variation is a way of making the elusive quality of good writing open to inspection.
▪ They have that elusive quality called narrative momentum.
▪ He had that elusive quality so distinctive of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.
▪ This is the elusive quality which record companies look for.
▪ Thousands of young hopefuls were interviewed but none possessed the elusive qualities Selznick sought.
▪ The result is a slightly elusive quality which is part of its singular attraction.
▪ Mary Scott's work has the elusive quality of a childhood memory.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A cure for the disease has proven to be elusive.
▪ the elusive key to corporate success
▪ The fox is a sly elusive animal.
▪ The gray fox is a very shy elusive creature.
▪ The team came within one game of the elusive state championship.
▪ We repeatedly tried to contact the manager, an elusive man who was never in his office.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Even a relatively modest addition to the liberal framework, universal health coverage, remains elusive.
▪ I can find the Big Dipper, but the North Star can be elusive.
▪ Most students find that the first job does eventually come along, and even that elusive Equity card is attainable.
▪ The nature of things was to be elusive.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Elusive

Elusive \E*lu"sive\, a. Tending to elude; using arts or deception to escape; adroitly escaping or evading; eluding the grasp; fallacious.

Elusive of the bridal day, she gives Fond hopes to all, and all with hopes deceives.
--Pope. -- E*lu"sive*ly, adv. -- E*lu"sive*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
elusive

1719, from Latin elus-, past participle stem of eludere "elude, frustrate" (see elude) + -ive. Related: Elusiveness.

Wiktionary
elusive

a. evade capture, comprehension or remembrance.

WordNet
elusive
  1. adj. difficult to describe; "a haunting elusive odor"

  2. skillful at eluding capture; "a cabal of conspirators, each more elusive than the archterrorist"- David Kline [syn: evasive]

  3. be difficult to detect or grasp by the mind; "his whole attitude had undergone a subtle change"; "a subtle difference"; "that elusive thing the soul" [syn: subtle]

Wikipedia
Elusive (disambiguation)

" Elusive" is a song by Scott Matthews.

Elusive may also refer to:

  • USS Elusive (AM-225), a minesweeper
  • Elusive Creek, a river in Alaska
  • Elusive (band), was a Norwegian rock band (1996-2009)
Elusive

"Elusive" was the first single for British singer-songwriter Scott Matthews and was released on 18 September 2006. The single received much airplay from BBC Radio DJs Jo Whiley, Dermot O'Leary, and Zane Lowe between August 7–10; Lowe played "Elusive" once each night as his chosen Single of the Week. Matthews also visited the station to perform "Elusive" and other songs from the album in May and August 2006. In May 2007, he won the Ivor Novello Award for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically" which saw "Elusive" beat strong competition from the likes of the Arctic Monkeys.

The track was used in 2008 by UK television company Channel 4 for the advertising campaign surrounding the final season of The Sopranos, which aired exclusively on their digital channel E4.

"Elusive" was covered by Lianne La Havas on her 2012 debut LP Is Your Love Big Enough?.

Usage examples of "elusive".

I was staring up at the stars, thinking of the Gibson and McIlroy and that abo walking out alive, trying to picture what had really happened, my thoughts ranging and the truth elusive.

He bagged some urchins and sea cucumbers, but the crabs were elusive, and when he swam along the edge of the bay with his knife unsheathed to pry off the purple scallops, fierce currents threatened to drag him against the rocks.

It was an elusive vision--a moment of bewildering darkness, and then, in a flash like daylight, the red masses of the Orphanage near the crest of the hill, the green tops of the pine trees, and this problematical object came out clear and sharp and bright.

And she, Clair Frankenstein, was going to prove it by accosting one of these elusive London vampires in its own home.

The pain in her eyes darkened his and when she latched onto his wrist with surprisingly strong hands, he was held by something elusive, something he felt he was close to understanding, or perhaps would never understand.

Elusive, dealers in anything that required no great effort, ears pricking for every rumor going, sometimes drunks, seldom druggers, sometimes burnt out, sometimes disaffected, subversive in a passive way.

Proximity, loneliness, an elusive flagrance she emanated, a lot of things accounted for my feelings, I told myself firmly, but not a physical attraction or even old-fashioned lust.

Seeing the stubborn look on her face, he poured out the tale of the elusive historical data on the heterochronic gene project.

He summarized his problems in retracing the origins of the heterochronic genes, told of his encounter with the warning bells in the file from the codicil and the elusive footage of the voracious underwater monster.

This is the voice of One who calls to us in the small illusions, the elusive encounters with small joys designed to speak of the gigantic joy for which we were created.

But this -perverse, oblique, its potential elusive but limitless - it resembled Lunaria herself.

The elusive specter had apparently never had sufficient identity for a legend to crystallize about it, and after a time the Boynes had laughingly set the matter down to their profit-and-loss account, agreeing that Lyng was one of the few houses good enough in itself to dispense with supernatural enhancements.

Showing, while millions of souls hurry on, The virtues of collars, from sunset till dawn, By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl, Starting new fads for the shame-weary girl, By maggoty motions in sickening line Proclaiming a hat or a soup or a wine, While there far above the steep cliffs of the street The stars sing a message elusive and sweet.

They developed a little gray matter, the neopallium, to deal with the elusive and ambiguous information that smells provide.

In any case, his mind was too busy to be seeking after an elusive neume, for he was about to report to a new captain, a man upon whom his comfort and ease of mind was to depend, to say nothing of his reputation, career and prospects of advancement.