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elude

verb

Simple meaning

To evade or escape from.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihlood

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪˈlud

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. transitive

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

  2. transitive

    To shake off (a pursuer); to give someone the slip.

  3. transitive

    To escape someone's memory, to slip someone's mind.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: To evade or escape from (someone or something), especially by using cunning or skill.

Used this way, elude is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use elude

  • “What you are seeing in him eludes me.”verb
  • “The thief eluded the police.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

elude detectionelude pursuitforever eludeeasily elude

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: to evade or escape from (someone or something)

evadeduckbilkArchaic

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.