Elude

//ɪˈljuːd// verb

verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To evade or escape from (someone or something), especially by using cunning or skill. transitive

    "Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it."

  2. 2
    avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues) wordnet
  3. 3
    To shake off (a pursuer); to give someone the slip. transitive

    "Podolski gave Walcott a chance to further embellish Arsenal's first-half performance when he eluded James Perch and slipped the ball through to the striker."

  4. 4
    escape, either physically or mentally wordnet
  5. 5
    To escape being understandable to; to be incomprehensible to. transitive

    "I get algebra, but calculus eludes me."

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    be incomprehensible to; escape understanding by wordnet
  2. 7
    To escape someone's memory, to slip someone's mind. transitive

    "The solution of that brainteaser eludes me and the name of the author eludes my memory too."

Synonyms

All synonyms
avoidbackpedalbackwaterbafflebalkbeg

Example

More examples

"In order to elude the eager public, the movie star checked into the hotel under a false name."

Etymology

From Latin ēlūdō (“to evade, elude”), from ē- (“out of”, short form of ex-) + lūdō (“to play; to trick”).

Related phrases

give someone slipshake off

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.