人與動物躲著你
最貼近原始畫面的一支：會動、會自己躲的活物。你想看牠、想找到他，牠卻總是不現身。
hard to find · adjective · C2
Hard to find or not often seen, used about a person or an animal, often because they stay hidden.
難找
核心畫面
You can think of it like this: you reach out to grab something and your hand closes on air. It was there a second ago, and now it has slipped past you. Elusive describes the thing that keeps escaping your reach — whether your hand, your effort, or your mind is what does the reaching.
你伸手要抓，手卻在空中合攏，什麼都沒抓到。那東西剛剛明明還在，一轉眼就從指縫溜掉了。elusive 講的就是這種「一…更多收起
你伸手要抓，手卻在空中合攏，什麼都沒抓到。那東西剛剛明明還在，一轉眼就從指縫溜掉了。elusive 講的就是這種「一直閃開你」的性質——差別只在於，去抓它的是你的手、你的努力，還是你的腦袋。這個字本身不帶壞的意味，它描述的是對方滑不溜丟，不是對方居心不良。From the word’s history
From Latin eludo (to parry a blow, to dodge, to deceive), formed from ex- (away) plus ludo (to play). The original picture is a fencer playfully sidestepping a strike rather than blocking it — the blow lands on nothing.
來自拉丁文 eludo（閃避對方的攻擊、躲開、騙過），由 ex-（離開）加上 ludo（玩、遊戲）組成。最早的畫面比較像擊劍時對手不硬擋，而是輕巧地側身一閃，讓你這一劍刺了個空——「像在跟你玩」的躲。這個「打不到、抓不著」的閃避感，正好接上現代 elusive 的三種用法：動物躲著你、成功躲著你、意思躲著你。
Latin elusus / eludo (ex- + ludo), as given in the entry's origin note
Three branches
想達成卻總是差一步
把會閃躲的活物換成一個目標，畫面照樣成立：你追、它退，你伸手、它又遠了一點。這裡的努力是真的付出了，只是每次都在最後一步落空。
hard to achieve · adjective · C2
Hard to get, used about a result, a goal, or success that you keep trying for but cannot quite reach.
難達成
腦袋抓不住的意思
這一支把去抓的手換成心思。同樣是伸手落空，只是落空的地方在腦子裡：話到嘴邊說不出來，感覺明明在卻描述不了。
hard to pin down · adjective · C2
Hard to put into words or hold in your mind; used about an idea, a feeling, or a quality.
難以捉摸
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
elusiveadj/ɪˈl(j)uː.sɪv/
- 1
Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance.
- The elusive criminal was arrested
- The temporary elusive goal / To reach the solace, to feed once more upon the synthetic reaper of loss / No matter the outcome, the cost
- 2
Difficult to make precise.
- A precise definition of diarrhea is elusive
- Charley chased the elusive idea through all the nooks and crannies of his drowning consciousness.
- 3
Rarely seen.
- While you're sniffing the trunks of the ponderosas to see if they're butterscotch, vanilla, strawberry, or the elusive chocolate variety, watch for Brown Creepers, an elusive variety of bird.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。