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Elusive   /ɪlˈusɪv/   Listen
Elusive

adjective
1.
Difficult to describe.
2.
Skillful at eluding capture.
3.
Difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze.  Synonym: subtle.  "A subtle difference" , "That elusive thing the soul"
4.
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



... beyond our power to ascertain or even to guess; but if—to say it once more—the action of matter on matter, the "how" of chemical combinations, eludes us, shall we complain because the action of mind on mind, spirit on spirit, is no {216} less elusive? The final test—whether, e.g., a mother's prayer that her absent son may be preserved from the snare of some great temptation, is able to work a change in his mind—is, as we said above, the test of experience; ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... added that: "Ursula Bart, a charming and unsophisticated young American girl possessed of an elusive expression makes her ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... the boy there. New little books, too, appeared from time to time, and the volumes had overflowed their original home; and from that fact Christopher gathered that the priest, though he had left the external life of Religion, still followed after the elusive spirit ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... and examined the knobs and dial. Then, raising his head, he sniffed the air, his nostrils detecting an elusive fragrance, exotic, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... galley, for food which survived until its arrival on the table, though not allowed much time for further mishap, often ended in a disagreeable mass on the floor or, tossed by a lurch of more than usual suddenness, entered an adjoining cabin. From such localities the elusive piece de resistance ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson


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