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elude
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elude as in:  she eluded the police

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • The quarterback eluded the linebackers.
  • Tailed almost everywhere she went, her mail searched, her friends and family interrogated, Shizuka endured intense scrutiny for two years. When October 1, 1948, came, she went to the restaurant, apparently eluding her pursuers.   (source)
    eluding = avoiding or getting away from
  • "You, Tobias—or should I call you Four?—managed to elude me," she says quietly.   (source)
    elude = avoid (get away from)
  • No. His captors eluded the local police before I landed.   (source)
    eluded = avoided (got away from)
  • So the war swept over like a wave at the seashore, gathering power and size as it bore on us, overwhelming in its rush, seemingly inescapable, and then at the last moment eluded by a word from Phineas; I had simply ducked, that was all, and the wave's concentrated power had hurtled harmlessly overhead, no doubt throwing others roughly up on the beach, but leaving me peaceably treading water as before.   (source)
    eluded = avoided
  • In that way she will elude her wicked tormentor and break its evil cycle of birth and death.   (source)
    elude = avoid (get away from)
  • That was where he earned the nickname Psycho for taking on the biggest players on his peewee football team, where he boldly faced a loaded shotgun, where he jumped from a moving vehicle off an interstate bridge into a lake, where he saved a life, eluded capture, and performed his first nighttime raids.   (source)
    eluded = avoided
  • She had been his first target and had eluded him.   (source)
    eluded = avoided (got away from)
  • He fell once, dashing to elude gunfire, and reopened his festering wounds.   (source)
    elude = avoid
  • Eluding Jordan's undergraduate, who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation with two chorus girls, and who implored me to join him, I went inside.   (source)
    eluding = avoiding (getting away from)
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show 89 more with this conextual meaning
  • If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the game.   (source)
    eludes = evades (is not caught by)
  • The evening was now drawing close, and well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till then imprisoned there, would take new freedom and could in any of many forms elude pursuit.   (source)
    elude = escape (get away from)
  • The enemy's fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat pass, allows his entire army to elude it.   (source)
    elude = avoid (get away from)
  • My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him.... He easily eluded me and said, "Be calm!"   (source)
    eluded = avoided (got away from)
  • Even if Roy managed to elude Dana Matherson this afternoon, the drama would start all over again Monday.†   (source)
  • The tutors were easy to elude, they didn't know our secret pathways, and Reenie couldn't keep track of us every minute, as she herself often pointed out.†   (source)
  • While the splendors that elude us in youth are likely to receive our casual contempt in adolescence and our measured consideration in adulthood, they forever hold us in their thrall.†   (source)
  • There were some people by the soft-drink table, and I went and joined them, but only long enough to elude Daddy's gaze.†   (source)
  • She had to elude the news van that followed her to the highway.†   (source)
  • Grandmother's memory began to elude her near the end.†   (source)
  • At first even the cook's huge fat kitchen cat had been able to elude her, but Syrio had kept her at it day and night.†   (source)
  • After school I would stay in the library until it closed, just to elude the family's overconcerned looks.†   (source)
  • As he waits in Veracruz for a train to leave, a thirty-one-year-old Salvadoran recalls how he recently watched a man get his right leg cut off as he was trying to elude la migra at a train stop.†   (source)
  • Perhaps the goal I'd sought in life would elude me; but at least during this one moment, it was within my power to sit in the room with the Chairman and tell him how deeply I felt.†   (source)
  • He'll elude them.†   (source)
  • Moreover, they address the personality of his parents, especially Jocasta, who tried to elude the curse, and of Oedipus himself, who seems never to have inquired as to how he came to have these scars.†   (source)
  • had heard of to the new city of Mann, on the Pacific Ocean, close to San Francisco, he did not argue, or even resist, as she thought he might, and instead lie said yes, and both of them were filled with hope, hope that they would be able to rekindle their relationship, to reconnect with their relationship, as it had been not long ago, and to elude, through a distance spanning a third of the globe, what it seemed in danger of becoming.†   (source)
  • Besides, many times in the history of the river the yellow plague flag had been flown in order to evade taxes, or to avoid picking up an undesirable passenger, or to elude inopportune inspections.†   (source)
  • Now, however, he instinctively wanted to rebel, to elude the shackles they were trying to place on him.†   (source)
  • Yet the answers I seek elude me.†   (source)
  • No way to elude the bitter bite of blame I tried to lay the night's events on anyone but myself.†   (source)
  • It gives the impression that preparations have been made to hide her personality and cleverly elude observing eyes.†   (source)
  • But that afternoon and evening, normal would elude them.†   (source)
  • Is it any wonder that ever since then, sleep tends to elude me?†   (source)
  • After the dance, he'd attempt to find me, but I'd elude him.†   (source)
  • Major Major forged diligently with his left hand to elude identification, insulated against intrusion by his own undesired authority and camouflaged in his false mustache and dark glasses as an additional safeguard against detection by anyone chancing to peer in through the dowdy celluloid window from which some thief had carved out a slice.†   (source)
  • Lew and I steal kisses whenever we can elude the gaggle.†   (source)
  • Given what's happened, it will continue to be under surveillance for some time—even if the tests elude you.†   (source)
  • Moody was reticent, for here was an opportunity for me to elude his control.†   (source)
  • Bublanski and his colleagues were convinced that the killer could be found among the man's prodigious network of fellow alcoholics and drug addicts, but despite their intensive work whoever it was had continued to elude the police.†   (source)
  • I think it was because I felt closer to him than to myself that, after his death, I deliberately sought his advice for writing the novel that continued to elude me.†   (source)
  • Draw upon it and it serves you with ease —Looked at but cannot be seen — listened to but cannot be heard — grasped at but cannot be touched — these three elude all our inquiries and hence blend and become one.†   (source)
  • They had chosen their hiding-spot well; to the left of us was a steep wooded bank they could have forced us into had we tried to elude them.†   (source)
  • Either his informer will elude internal security or the Jackal will have to kill him.†   (source)
  • With so many individual patrols on the volcano, they won't be able to elude us.†   (source)
  • It's an ending that continues to elude some of the individuals portrayed in the story.†   (source)
  • Whether, when seeing a dead Vietnamese, to be happy or sad or relieved; whether, in times of quiet, to be apprehensive or content; whether to engage the enemy or elude him.†   (source)
  • The memory continued to elude Joe.†   (source)
  • Seward has trouble speaking; he has no chance of leaping from the bed to elude a surprise attack.†   (source)
  • An alien, therefore, only has to first reside in the former to elude the greater qualifications in the latter.†   (source)
  • Time and again, what appears to elude you is the application of principle.†   (source)
  • It seemed Safia had managed to elude their pursuers.†   (source)
  • Most of all, they elude facile description, but they do possess a municipal character that has a lot to do with two centuries of scriptural belief that they are simply superior to other people of the earth.†   (source)
  • Even if they were lucky enough to elude the patrol, they could not possibly hide from the bloodhounds.†   (source)
  • It begins to elude him.†   (source)
  • "Officer Miller," she said, "doesn't it strike you as odd that a maniac such as this Sunlight Man should be able to elude you all for so long, and stores be robbed and people murdered and none of you able to stop it—you, I mean, people of proven ability?†   (source)
  • I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.†   (source)
  • We may confidently state the reasons why—yet something always seems to elude us.†   (source)
  • Silas now gazed at the bare floor and feared victory had eluded them.   (source)
    eluded = got away from
  • He had climbed trees twice to elude his pursuers.   (source)
    elude = get away from
  • She eluded him all the time, refused to meet his eyes, sought refuge in the children…   (source)
    eluded = avoided
  • Brinker Hadley had been tagged with a nickname at last, after four years of creating them for others and eluding one himself.   (source)
    eluding = avoiding (getting away from)
  • Again the Bird eluded them: The day after the doctors formed their plan, the Bird had the pharmacy medications locked up.   (source)
    eluded = got away
  • He continued to fade, fade, easy, easy, stalling until he could spot The Goober, tall and rangy, downfield where he'd be waiting if he had managed to elude the safety-man.   (source)
    elude = avoid (get away from)
  • I darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded, but the devil eluded my grasp.   (source)
    eluded = avoided (got away from)
  • I would have seized him, but he eluded me and quitted the house with precipitation.   (source)
  • But beyond Hong Kong, a simple warrant would be of no avail; an extradition warrant would be necessary, and that would result in delays and obstacles, of which the rascal would take advantage to elude justice.   (source)
    elude = avoid (get away from)
  • Besides, the strange nature of the animal would elude all pursuit, even if I were so far credited as to persuade my relatives to commence it.   (source)
  • I rushed towards the window, and drawing a pistol from my bosom, fired; but he eluded me, leaped from his station, and running with the swiftness of lightning, plunged into the lake.   (source)
    eluded = avoided (got away from)
  • She felt the chimerical angel of the past flying overhead, and she tried to elude it.†   (source)
  • Though I will if those oversized mice elude you.†   (source)
  • To elude the additional officers, migrants take ever greater risks to get on and off moving trains.†   (source)
  • We've hanged dozens of outlaws, but the leaders still elude us.†   (source)
  • As he hunted, it occurred to him that she might elude himentirely.†   (source)
  • "He may elude us for a time," he said, "but eventually he must surface."†   (source)
  • By evening the police were ready to concede that she might have managed to elude the cordon.†   (source)
  • For a while tax revenues would increase—until people found ways to elude the new taxes.†   (source)
  • I sat next to him, watching him; I no longer dared to believe that he could still elude Death.†   (source)
  • More troublesome was that Salander had managed to elude Magge Lundin.†   (source)
  • There will come a day when modern science begins in earnest to study the wisdom of the ancients ....that will be the day that mankind begins to find answers to the big questions that still elude him.†   (source)
  • But he ignored his duty as guardian: he said nothing to America Vicuna's parents, restrained by a sense of guilt that he tried to elude, and he did not discuss it with her because of a well-founded fear that she would try to implicate him in her failure.†   (source)
  • At the present, Uthar had the Dragon Wing tacked crossways to the wind, heading toward the Southern Isles, where he hoped to elude the sloops among the shoals and coves of Beirland.†   (source)
  • However, in the midst of so many tender memories, he could not elude his recollection of a helpless little bird whose name he never knew and with whom he spent no more than half a frenetic night, but that had been enough to ruin the innocent rowdiness of Carnival for him for the rest of his life.†   (source)
  • Still, no matter how hard she tried, she could not elude the presence of her dead husband: wherever she went, wherever she turned, no matter what she was doing, she would come across something of his that would remind her of him.†   (source)
  • There were no self-doubts now, no tactics feverishly improvised to elude pursuers, no race to trap the hunters.†   (source)
  • He says that the wild turkey, once abundant in the deciduous forests in these regions, is far more intelligent and can elude even practiced hunters.†   (source)
  • Peace continues to elude us.†   (source)
  • His mind was blank, and for a handful of panic-stricken seconds, he thought the use of language would continue to elude him and he would embarrass himself in front of the entire Varden.†   (source)
  • The boundaries between the mental activities of sense, perception, judgment, desire, choice, memory, and imagination elude the subtlest investigations and are a source of controversy.†   (source)
  • They said that a man who could elude the law as skilfully as Bigger had was "sane and responsible."†   (source)
  • She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her.†   (source)
  • In fact, what with the heat and the plague, some of our fellow citizens were losing their heads; there had already been some scenes of violence and nightly attempts were made to elude the sentries and escape to the outside world.†   (source)
  • That is, they had treed—a tree from which he (the architect) could not have escaped yet which he had undoubtedly mounted because they found the sapling pole with his suspenders still knotted about one end of it that he had used to climb the tree though at first they could not understand why the suspenders and it was three hours before they comprehended that the architect had used architecture, physics, to elude them as a man always falls back upon what he knows best in a crisis—the murderer upon murder, the thief thieving, the liar lying.†   (source)
  • He dragged me into the back yard and the instant his hand left me I jumped to my feet and broke into a wild run, trying to elude the people who surrounded me, heading for the street.†   (source)
  • From somewhere in him, out of the depths of flesh and blood and bone, he called up energy to run and dodge with but one impulse: he had to elude these men.†   (source)
  • But when her own consciousness caused it to elude her, then she both resented and regretted.†   (source)
  • Then, when Madeline gasped in breathless expectancy, the roan swerved to elude the attack.†   (source)
  • If he had been fresh he might have left Black Bolly far behind, but now he could not elude her.†   (source)
  • Never for a moment could Silvermane elude the huge roan, the tight halter, the relentless Navajo.†   (source)
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elude as in:  your point eludes me

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • The point of his story eludes me.
    eludes = is not understood by
  • I was trying to find the meaning the poet had in mind, but it eluded me.   (source)
    eluded = escaped understanding by
  • The more anxious I am to find sleep, the more it eludes me.   (source)
    eludes = remains out of reach
  • A curious contest, the nature of which eluded me, was developing between my father and the sheriff.   (source)
    eluded = was not understood by
  • Turtle was so close to winning she could feel it, taste it, but still the answer eluded her.   (source)
    eluded = is not understood by
  • The fact that the word was eluding a specialist like Leigh Teabing signified to Langdon that it was no ordinary Grail reference.   (source)
    eluding = escaping understanding by
  • She tried to remember how it had felt to stand on the deck of the Dolphin and see before her the harbor of Barbados. The haunting joy eluded her; the dream shores were dim and unreal.   (source)
    eluded = escaped
  • However, the fact is that he can't state anything with certainty and still tell the truth, because the truth eludes him.   (source)
    eludes = escapes understanding (is not understood by)
  • She is lost, vague, trying to catch hold, to make some sense of her former command of the world, but it still eludes her.   (source)
  • I've gotten the little metal cage off the champagne bottle, but the cork is eluding me.   (source)
    eluding = unachievable for
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show 44 more with this conextual meaning
  • But then, there was so much about her that eluded him.   (source)
    eluded = was not understood by
  • On a cool day in the late fall of 1939, Pollard and Seabiscuit set out for Santa Anita to chase the one dream that had eluded them.   (source)
    eluded = remained out of reach
  • Archie knew what it was and recognized it, although it eluded a definition.   (source)
    eluded = was unachievable to give
  • So any information that eludes us, anything that's not accessible, prevents us from being perfect.†   (source)
  • He only just eludes their grasp.†   (source)
  • Many afternoons, when Maraa Isabel is away at work, Jasman eludes her grandmother and wanders next door, where Miguel is constructing the family's new house.†   (source)
  • Their second day at the Taj he attempts to sketch the dome and a portion of the facade, but the building's grace eludes him and he throws the sketch away.†   (source)
  • There is another, perhaps earlier, verse, she is sure of it, but that eludes her as well.†   (source)
  • But we do; irony works because the audience understands something that eludes one or more of the characters.†   (source)
  • I READ THE e-mail six times before the letters form words and the words form sentences that I can understand, but, even then, the meaning of all the words taken together eludes me.†   (source)
  • And the enviable peace of which he speaks eludes me.†   (source)
  • But these days, sleep eludes me even with a medicine cabinet full of psychopharmacological assistance.†   (source)
  • It eludes our attempts to reason with it?†   (source)
  • He tells me that the Church is the only voluntary association in ourcountry which eludes the control of the state.†   (source)
  • Attraction eludes control so stubbornly that whole societies designed to organize relationships among people cannot keep order, not even when they bind people to one another from childhood and raise them together.†   (source)
  • Instead, I try to remember the feel of her touch, but the sensation eludes me.†   (source)
  • Only what you obviously know, the strategy of which I admit eludes me.†   (source)
  • But happiness eludes you, and will continue to do so until you've convinced yourself you deserve it.†   (source)
  • And even if an assassin eludes those crowds, he must escape the city in which it takes place, and then the country, until arriving at some foreign location of true refuge.†   (source)
  • Or rather it's Grace herself who eludes him.   (source)
    eludes = is not understood by
  • The wind was still howling, and something (a word? a phrase?) was still eluding him.   (source)
    eluding = escaping understanding by
  • Rosemont's surge, unexpected and sudden, may have eluded Pollard until very late in the race.   (source)
    eluded = escaped notice
  • The nature of Mr. Tostoff's composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes.   (source)
    eluded = was not understood by
  • The prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by herding us into that room eludes me, though I have a sharp physical memory that, in the course of it, my underwear kept climbing like a damp snake around my legs and intermittent beads of sweat raced cool across my back.   (source)
    eludes = escapes memory (can't be remembered)
  • He eludes the station's security guards and eases to a walk.†   (source)
  • The story he fabricated and rehearsed in his head so many times suddenly eludes him.†   (source)
  • But the precise nature of the medication eludes me.†   (source)
  • It was when it showed up, and even now this virus that can mutate in infinite ways to thwart nearly any treatment eludes our efforts to corral it.†   (source)
  • We in the audience can see the implication that eludes them (this is where our expectations concerning roads enter the equation), so much so that we may want to scream at them to walk up the road to a new life.†   (source)
  • We bury our 'gaps,' as you put it; we try too hard for that respectability which too often eludes us.†   (source)
  • Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers.†   (source)
  • No anxiety is caused on Don Juan's account by any minor antagonist: he easily eludes the police, temporal and spiritual; and when an indignant father seeks private redress with the sword, Don Juan kills him without an effort.†   (source)
  • They are moreover of opinion that courts of justice are unable to check the abuses of the press; and that as the subtilty of human language perpetually eludes the severity of judicial analysis, offences of this nature are apt to escape the hand which attempts to apprehend them.†   (source)
  • The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress.†   (source)
  • Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it.†   (source)
  • This complete equality eludes the grasp of the people at the very moment at which it thinks to hold it fast, and "flies," as Pascal says, "with eternal flight"; the people is excited in the pursuit of an advantage, which is more precious because it is not sufficiently remote to be unknown, or sufficiently near to be enjoyed.†   (source)
  • It is difficult to take an exact account of all the lands in a country which are under cultivation, with their natural or their acquired value; and it is still more impossible to estimate the entire personal property which is at the disposal of a nation, and which eludes the strictest analysis by the diversity and the number of shapes under which it may occur.†   (source)
  • What eludes me is the reason for his regression—is it a special case?   (source)
    eludes = escapes understanding (is not understood by)
  • There is something that comes to one now and perpetually,
    It is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed, it eludes discussion
    and print,
    It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this book,
    It is for you whoever you are, it is no farther from you than your
    hearing and sight are from you,
    It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest, it is ever provoked by them.†   (source)
  • Quicksand Years
    Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,
    Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and elude me,
    Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess'd soul, eludes not,
    One's-self must never give way—that is the final substance—that
    out of all is sure,
    Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?†   (source)
  • beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
    From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
    From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
    From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
    From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
    As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
    Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
    A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
    Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
    I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
    Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
    A reminiscence sing.†   (source)
  • A Riddle Song
    That which eludes this verse and any verse,
    Unheard by sharpest ear, unform'd in clearest eye or cunningest mind,
    Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth,
    And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly,
    Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss,
    Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion,
    Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner,
    Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose,
    Which sculptor never chisel'd yet, nor painter painted,
    Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter'd,
    Invoking here and now I challenge for my song.†   (source)
  • — and suddenly I remembered the story about her that had eluded me that night at Daisy's.   (source)
    eluded = escaped memory (couldn't be remembered)
  • Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… and one fine morning —   (source)
    eluded = remained out of reach
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • Still, fear eluded her, even as she longed to feel terrified, anything to dislodge the blade jammed against her heart.†   (source)
  • I cleaned every nook and cranny of every fork, spoon, knife, butter knife, cheese server, iced-tea spoon, carving knife, and oyster fork, not to mention the pieces whose function completely eluded me.†   (source)
  • Here, she felt a sense of security that had long eluded her.†   (source)
  • There were times when, like a word on the tip of her tongue, Mariam's face eluded her.†   (source)
  • Harry held the paper up to the candlelight and read: BLACK STILL AT LARGE Sirius Black, possibly the most infamous prisoner ever to be held in Azkaban fortress, is still eluding capture, the Ministry of Magic confirmed today.†   (source)
  • When the father and brother chased after him, they happened to leave open the heavy front door, which gave him access after he eluded them.†   (source)
  • "GOODNESS AS BRIBERY," Owen called it—an argument that eluded Mrs. Walker.†   (source)
  • And the truth of Jon Arryn's death still eluded him.†   (source)
  • It was said that he once cured a woman dying of an ancestral curse that had eluded the best of American doctors.†   (source)
  • I remembered that the simplest things were the ones that often eluded what I thought of as her big brain.†   (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • I told him about the bag, painting the picture, trying to make the story as humorous as possible, but laughter eluded him.†   (source)
  • Always, ultimately, she eluded me: I'd always just missed her call, or misplaced her phone number; or run up breathless and gasping to the place where she was supposed to be, only to find her gone.†   (source)
  • Every dream that eluded the father was fulfilled by the son.†   (source)
  • Of the half-dozen checkpoints Enrique has eluded in southern Mexico, he fears La Arrocera most.†   (source)
  • He snuggled down into the bag and felt glad for its warmth, and the thought that this was the first time he'd felt glad for heat this season—that it was growing colder—somehow eluded him.†   (source)
  • The question was posed innocently enough, but Eragon knew there had to be a catch or trap in it, though it eluded him.†   (source)
  • But not all that much eluded him "You've got a damn bright little kid there," I told Rufus.†   (source)
  • But who she owed or what to pay it with eluded her.†   (source)
  • There in the Master's Rock, where perfect satori had eluded so many much worthier pilgrims, I achieved it through the memory of a not quite sixteen-year-old womanchild's body lying next to mine while moonlight spilled from a Thomas Hawk's wings.†   (source)
  • But there was one demon who eluded Tehlu.†   (source)
  • No doubt his quick mind had already comprehended every aspect that eluded me.†   (source)
  • Still the vital clues, the connections that would make everything clear, eluded him.†   (source)
  • This guy eluded the French police ....in loafers?†   (source)
  • I was performing the prince, the same role that had so eluded me back in China.†   (source)
  • I thought she might be able to help me, and I attempted to enlist her as an ally, buying her presents and trying to joke with her, but she eluded me, too.†   (source)
  • But the information ...It's almost as if it is eluding me on purpose.†   (source)
  • In Rome, Italy, he joined the pope's army and eluded capture for a year.†   (source)
  • One day, when Aureliano Segundo reproached her unjustly, she eluded the trap and put things in their proper place.†   (source)
  • Having paid princely sums to be escorted up Everest, some climbers have then sued their guides when the summit eluded them.†   (source)
  • But you make it sound like a convenient fantasy, the worst kind of self-d elusion.†   (source)
  • Cass thought—the more she eluded him, the more savagely she shamed him.†   (source)
  • She was ashamed that such a simple insight should have eluded her all these years.†   (source)
  • When they deported me to Germany, I eluded being sent to a concentration camp.†   (source)
  • Until now, however, a suitable victim had eluded them.†   (source)
  • As if somewhere high over the Southeast seaboard, she'd finally found the answer to the puzzle that had eluded her for so long.†   (source)
  • For one, it seems like knowing that he could still be outside hustling, eluding the U.S. marshalls, actually makes his days back at Lorton feel harsher, more depriving, than any time he can remember.†   (source)
  • When she got through with her story, he explained that he had killed a dentist in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and was a wanted man, but that he had hopes of eluding the law, and if he did, he would certainly try to see that she got to San Francisco, where she belonged.†   (source)
  • Feminine calm had eluded him all his life.†   (source)
  • And her eyes, which I thought her best feature, shifted quickly as if what they sought had just a second before eluded her.†   (source)
  • "Isn't it amazing," Farmer says to me, "that this simple fact has eluded all the many commentaries on Voodoo?"†   (source)
  • Love has eluded me.†   (source)
  • Rolf crashed in and stole the ball, eluding Max and kicking a long pass downfield to Connor, who fired a hard shot toward the goal.†   (source)
  • He had eluded us, and the longer he remained free, the greater the speculation.†   (source)
  • It had eluded capture, and they had not shot it, not knowing whether it was good or ill, and it had vanished down the Silverlode southward.†   (source)
  • Twice the man had eluded him after direct hits.†   (source)
  • If she ran fast enough, and if the luck that had been eluding her all her life made a final, last-minute appearance, maybe she could see Luke one last time.†   (source)
  • He'd eluded the guards on the floor above, and if he hurried, he could be gone before they'd reorganized the search.†   (source)
  • He could remember aerything about Katherine III, and the rest of them, too, of course—he remembered everything about everything—and yet something about Katherine III clearly eluded him.†   (source)
  • Then I tried in vain to pin the thing down, and cut it, but it eluded me, and in my frustration I was clanking my knife on the plate.†   (source)
  • Was it the illogical logic of the assassin who had eluded a hundred special branches of the international intelligence community for nearly thirty years?†   (source)
  • He may have had all the answers, but this one eluded him.†   (source)
  • But feeling that Archie had somehow eluded him, had somehow won a victory, Carter said, "Look, Archie, if this backfires, if the sale doesn't work, then you've screwed yourself up, do you understand?†   (source)
  • Something was eluding him, something that was not right.†   (source)
  • They didn't holster their weapons even after they had gone through every room in the house and called in the other two soldiers, for they could never be sure their quarry had not eluded them and would not suddenly appear and shoot them in the back.†   (source)
  • Cacciato eluded them but he left behind the wastes of his march: empty ration cans, bits of bread, a belt of gold-cased ammo dangling from a shrub, a leaking canteen, candy wrappers, worn rope.†   (source)
  • Apparently words eluded her.†   (source)
  • The connection eluded him, seemed absurd.†   (source)
  • But the exact details of the murder have so far eluded him.†   (source)
  • It was years before Ralph even knew to ask himself those questions; and then it was only to find that he didn't know their answers — that his own nature eluded his grasp, like a solid sublimating straightaway, from between his fingers, to gas.†   (source)
  • It was perfection—or even near-perfection—that somehow eluded her, and as she grew up, the notion of attempting it seemed to fall farther and farther from her desire.†   (source)
  • He had been dreaming, about what he could not recall—his dreams, like contentment, eluded him.†   (source)
  • I laid the ball in softly, perfectly, with an underhand sweep that barely eluded a leaping VMI forward who had sloughed off Doug to help Mance.†   (source)
  • They agreed that it must mean something—but the meaning eluded them.†   (source)
  • She remembered the symphony so clearly from her past—again, those concerts in Cracow—but here in Brooklyn, because she had no phonograph and because she always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the Pastoral had completely eluded her, forever tantalizingly announcing itself but remaining unheard like some gorgeous but mute bird flitting away as she pursued it through the foliage of a dark forest.†   (source)
  • Our intellects are far more powerful than yours, but there is something in your minds that has always eluded us.†   (source)
  • They had had plenty to drink and plenty to eat — not always what they'd have chosen (for the water duck eluded their every trap and snare) — but at least something: fruit or vegetable, reptile or fish.†   (source)
  • He had eluded judgment, that was all he had done, and Joel was glad while he still trembled.†   (source)
  • Summoning for the last time that spellbinding oratorical ability, he abandoned his previous opposition to slavery in the territories, abandoned his constituents' abhorrence of the Fugitive Slave Law, abandoned his own place in the history and hearts of his countrymen and abandoned his last chance for the goal that had eluded him for over twenty years—the Presidency.†   (source)
  • She eluded him but was driven back on the couch.†   (source)
  • Suddenly she remembered what had been eluding her.†   (source)
  • The alternate possibility, that the mask was perhaps designed to shield Thalia from us, eluded me.†   (source)
  • Like his accent, the hairstyle eluded me.†   (source)
  • His two sons eluded him and he had had no further contact with his daughter Blanca.†   (source)
  • He could get so intense—throw screaming kicking tantrums when something seemed to be eluding him.†   (source)
  • He stops and circles, eluding the Vancouver defenseman February 15.†   (source)
  • He searched for answers in it, but if there were any, they eluded him.†   (source)
  • I've been trying to recall the name of a certain dragon, but it keeps eluding me.†   (source)
  • Clara eluded me with that distracted attitude of hers I came to despise.†   (source)
  • Oaths flew from his lips when it eluded his grasp.†   (source)
  • The group had garnered much sympathy as they eluded Galbatorix's efforts to destroy them.†   (source)
  • He just wanted the answer that had eluded him for so long, I tried to tell myself.†   (source)
  • Somehow Osha and the wretched boys were eluding him.†   (source)
  • What that distraction should be, however, eluded him.†   (source)
  • And this other man, this Tormund of the many names who eluded us after the battle?†   (source)
  • Specifics eluded him; he had no points of reference and it was maddening.†   (source)
  • Kevin had to go back to work on Monday, furious that she'd eluded him.†   (source)
  • But whatever that might be, it eluded him.†   (source)
  • To discover what eluded me: the secret of the magic they weaved on others.†   (source)
  • Once in a while he eluded Roscoe, and twice already he had fallen into the river.†   (source)
  • For the Army of Northern Virginia has eluded the army of General Ulysses S. Grant.†   (source)
  • Having affected her this way, Joe felt a connection with life that had eluded him for so long.†   (source)
  • She was sending a signal and it eluded him.†   (source)
  • He had even sent men crawling through the sewers, yet somehow Robert still eluded him.†   (source)
  • You have already eluded the worst danger: the selection.†   (source)
  • He knew a little conversational Japanese, but chopsticks eluded him.†   (source)
  • The fatigue would not abate, for even after her return, sleep eluded her.†   (source)
  • He groped for the switch and swore when it eluded him.†   (source)
  • Whoever had carved up the ash had eluded his sentries, plainly.†   (source)
  • Revelation eluded him now as it had eluded him when he had been sotted with sleep.†   (source)
  • He had done it so often before — the specifics eluded him, but not the pattern.†   (source)
  • 'Thirty-five to forty murders' the assassin-for-hire who eluded every trap ever set for him.†   (source)
  • For a moment the memory eluded him Then it came.†   (source)
  • She ran forward, then stopped short and backed away as though eluding someone.†   (source)
  • But the big prize still eluded him.†   (source)
  • Every Auror in the Ministry was—and is—trying to find him and round up his followers, but we happen to be talking about one of the most powerful wizards of all time, a wizard who has eluded capture for almost three decades!†   (source)
  • How was it possible that Voldemort, the Slytherin, had found the diadem that had eluded generations of Ravenclaws?†   (source)
  • Trying to squelch the torment, he sank deeper into the parchments and eluded the innocent flattery of that aunt who was poisoning his nights with a flow of tribulation, but the more he avoided her the more the anxiety with which he waited for her stony laughter, her howls of a happy cat, and her songs of gratitude, agonizing in love at all hours and in the most unlikely parts of the house.†   (source)
  • Owen was disappointed that the Eastmans were spending Christmas in the Caribbean; another opportunity to go to Sawyer Depot had eluded him.†   (source)
  • Maybe, if I could just see his face again, I would also be able to see the solution that eluded me now.†   (source)
  • The last time he was stopped here, he jumped down, grabbed two fistfuls of rocks, and barely eluded capture.†   (source)
  • It eluded him.†   (source)
  • But either my humor eluded him, or else Owen Meany had no intention of making himself any clearer on this point.†   (source)
  • Even The Gravesend News-Letter failed to recognize that Scrooge was the main character; that Mr. Fish was the principal actor was a fact that entirely eluded The News-Letter's drama critic, who wrote, "The quintessential Christmas tale, the luster of which has been dulled (at least, for this reviewer) by its annual repetition, has been given a new sparkle."†   (source)
  • It had been a very happy day for me, because a new lode had appeared, the thick, magnificent seam that had eluded me throughout that time of sacrifice, absence, and hope, and that might represent the wealth I had been seeking for so long.†   (source)
  • His grip on this newfound power would last only as long as opportunity to strike back eluded his many new enemies.†   (source)
  • But the saltpeter eluded them.†   (source)
  • As with his work on the house, Noah put great effort into making both the garden and the trellis unique; I often reach out to trace the carvings or simply stare at the roses, hoping perhaps to absorb the talents that have always eluded me.†   (source)
  • Searching again, he noticed something that had eluded him before: a single flower, a gentian, blooming not fifty feet in front of them, where, by all rights, there ought to be solid rock.†   (source)
  • The second objective was one that had eluded the law—there was no reason to think that he could succeed where they had failed.†   (source)
  • For if he had used all his power to guard Mordor, so that none could enter, and bent all his guild to the hunting of the Ring, then indeed hope would have faded: neither Ring nor Bearer could long have eluded him.†   (source)
  • For half a heartbeat it eluded him, and that frightened him so badly that he tripped on the steep dungeon steps and tore his breeches open on the stone, drawing blood.†   (source)
  • Year by year, job by job, Matt was separating himself from the science he did in the 1970s, work whose precise nature eluded Nick, government work that involved classified projects and remote locations.†   (source)
  • The shield eluded her so long she nearly switched to the cauldron, but Branna had instructed each in turn, so she cleared her mind —a challenge, as it was so damn full then refreshed the spell.†   (source)
  • But they eluded me.†   (source)
  • The man shouted and tried to catch her—she felt his thick fingers close on the air above her neck—but he was too slow, and she eluded his grasp.†   (source)
  • I wept with relief every Sunday as he eluded the evil men and bounded back from each seeming defeat as sweet and gentle as ever.†   (source)
  • But the answer eluded him.†   (source)
  • it still eluded him.†   (source)
  • Most of them simply refused to believe that Westerners were capable of such an achievement, which had eluded even the strongest Sherpas.†   (source)
  • How had he eluded them?†   (source)
  • Also, although I was pressing for a female expressiveness, it eluded me for the most part, and I had to content myself with female personae because I was not able to secure throughout the work the feminine subtext that is present in the opening sentence (the women gossiping, eager and aghast in "Quiet as it's kept").†   (source)
  • That there was a trick or a strategy that would allow him to crack open the city like a ripe gourd, he was confident, but the solution eluded him.†   (source)
  • She wished she had read about Japanese twins (the word "Siamese" eluded her) or asphyxiated babies, but the fact was she hadn't; she'd read about jaundice.†   (source)
  • But Martin Adams, distrustful of reporters, kept a low profile in the aftermath of the tragedy and eluded my repeated attempts to interview him until after the Outside piece went to press.†   (source)
  • The trip to the kitchen and back could not have taken more than two minutes, yet in that time I tramped through swampy cemeteries, climbed over dusty gravestones and eluded litters of night-black cats.†   (source)
  • And once the sacred rage had been rekindled, he focused it on the one prize that had eluded him: Jerusalem.†   (source)
  • In a strange twist, many newspapers mocked Lincoln for the way he eluded the assassins by wearing a cheap disguise as he snuck into Washington.†   (source)
  • Also, it reminded him of Brom, of how the old storyteller had taught him the meaning of each rune, which gave Eragon a sense of closeness with his father that otherwise eluded him.†   (source)
  • During the 1980s Fischer made a number of impressive ascents hid that earned him a modicum of local renown, but celebrity in the world climbing community eluded him.†   (source)
  • The five-foot-eight General Grant, an introspective man whom Abraham Lincoln calls "the quietest little man" he's ever met, has Petersburg completely to himself He lights a cigar and basks in the still morning air, surrounded by the ruined city that eluded him for 293 miserable days.†   (source)
  • Whatever inconsistencies he might find would take too long to unearth for they — or it — had eluded his own experienced eyes as well as London's.†   (source)
  • Ten years ago, Tyrion had read a fragment of Unnatural History that had eluded the Blessed Baelor, but he doubted that any of Barth's work had found its way across the narrow sea.†   (source)
  • God, how he attacked the books, overjoyed when whole stretches of history came back to him, balanced by the anguish of realizing it was only segments of his own life that eluded him.†   (source)
  • Each time Bourne took over communications, explaining in the first instance that they were on a search mission for a disabled ship bringing Taiwanese goods into the mainland, for the second a somewhat more ominous declaration that as part of the People's Security Forces they were scouting the coast for contraband vessels that had undoubtedly eluded the Raoping patrols.†   (source)
  • As far as Sam could see, Shagrat hunted Snaga round the roof, until ducking and eluding him the smaller orc with a yelp darted back into the turret and disappeared.†   (source)
  • market place, congratulating himself on having eluded Death.†   (source)
  • Solidities baffled him now, eluded him with a veiled shifting of contour.†   (source)
  • But thoughts eluded her, darting in and out of her mind like frightened humming birds.†   (source)
  • It eluded her but it was there, hidden, somewhere.†   (source)
  • His own mother's face eluded him.†   (source)
  • Only Ashley and Rhett eluded her understanding and her control for they were both adults, and the elements of boyishness were lacking in them.†   (source)
  • Many times in the years after that the image of my father and the strange woman, their faces lit by the dancing flames, would surge up in my imagination so vivid and strong that I felt I couldreach out and touch it; I would stare at it, feeling that it possessed some vital meaning which always eluded me.†   (source)
  • We drove and drove and the landscape was weirdly melancholy in the moonlight, touched with a lonesomeness and mystery that eluded it in the daytime.†   (source)
  • Many parties were sent out by syndicates, and they dug over a large area, but this rich prize still eluded them.†   (source)
  • no one personal Porto Rico or Haiti, but all mother faces which ever bred swooping down at those almost calculable moments out of some obscure ancient general affronting and outraging which the actual living articulate meat had not even suffered but merely inherited; all boy flesh that walked and breathed stemming from that one ambiguous eluded dark fatherhead and so brothered perennial and ubiquitous everywhere under the sun—" They stare at one another—glared rather—their quiet regular breathing vaporising faintly and steadily in the now tomblike air.†   (source)
  • No pigeon has ever committed an act of aggression nor turned upon her persecutors: but no bird, likewise, is so skilful in eluding them.†   (source)
  • While sitting there at the table waiting for his breakfast, he felt that he was arriving at something which had long eluded him.†   (source)
  • The only way they could think of between them was that the victim should ride all night to Aleppo, thus eluding the skull and bloody bones.†   (source)
  • She sighed as she carefully tied the ribbon about the packet, wondering for the thousandth time just what it was in Ashley that eluded her understanding.†   (source)
  • But Ashley seemed to mean them and there was a look in his eyes which eluded her—not fear, not apology, but the bracing to a strain which was inevitable and overwhelming.†   (source)
  • Everyone knew now that the fate of the Confederacy rested as much upon the skill of the blockade boats in eluding the Yankee fleet as it did upon the soldiers at the front.†   (source)
  • Duane had almost caught Snecker when he reached the shrubbery and trees and there eluded him.†   (source)
  • Carley rode afar, seeking in strange places the secret that eluded her.†   (source)
  • Maybe here was the secret that had eluded her.†   (source)
  • He spoke like one who was trying to keep hold of an idea that eluded him.†   (source)
  • She eluded two lunges the man made at her.†   (source)
  • She had also eluded Dolly's invitation to luncheon.†   (source)
  • She had eluded him thus, ever since they had carried her to her tomb.†   (source)
  • Madeline calmly rose from the table, eluding Florence's entreating hand, and started for the door.†   (source)
  • Eluding her cousin's caress, she led the way downstairs.†   (source)
  • Ducking, turning, doubling, he slid about the deck, eluding the other's efforts to capture him.†   (source)
  • She did not like the country, though that was not the impression which eluded her.†   (source)
  • Now, as though to spite him, it eluded him.†   (source)
  • Sanguine by nature, Troy had a power of eluding grief by simply adjourning it.†   (source)
  • "Has he eaten anything lately?" asked Madame de Villefort, eluding her husband's question.†   (source)
  • All four boats gave chase again; but the whale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared.†   (source)
  • For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings, eluded me, and snubbed me; and I won't stand it!†   (source)
  • Suddenly he realized that the footsteps were not behind, had never been behind, they were ahead and he was not eluding but following...following.†   (source)
  • A shadow loomed up, moving in the greyness, solitary, very bulky, and yet constantly eluding the eye.†   (source)
  • He told Mescal how he had crept upon the coyotes, how so many had eluded him, how he had missed a gray wolf.†   (source)
  • Several times Wolf Larsen tried to inveigle me into discussion, but I gave him short answers and eluded him.†   (source)
  • From a Leonardo she had become a living woman, with mysteries and forces of her own, with qualities that even eluded art.†   (source)
  • Perhaps there were transitional stages between the two, degrees of reality within nature, which, being mute, could not be evaluated and thus eluded a determination that, as he saw it, had something very moralistic about it.†   (source)
  • When she returned to her duties in Boston, Howard followed her, and the upshot of this inexplicable infatuation was that she eloped with him, eluding the reproaches of her family and the criticisms of her friends by going with him to the Nebraska frontier.†   (source)
  • He stretched out his arms in the street to hold fast the frail swooning form that eluded him and incited him: and the cry that he had strangled for so long in his throat issued from his lips.†   (source)
  • Her lips were compressed, the letter remained in her hand, and in this state she crossed the street, entered the marble vestibule of the flats, eluded the concierges, and ran up the stairs till she reached the second floor.†   (source)
  • But she eluded him.†   (source)
  • But White Fang was here, there, and everywhere, always evading and eluding, and always leaping in and slashing with his fangs and leaping out again in time to escape punishment.†   (source)
  • He had tried to kill Mrs. Moore this evening, on the roof of the Nawab Bahadur's house; but she still eluded him, and the atmosphere remained tranquil.†   (source)
  • Suddenly he made a particularly vehement pronouncement, the purport of which eluded Nicole, but she saw the young woman turn dark and sinewy, and heard her answer sharply: "After all a chep's a chep and a chum's a chum."†   (source)
  • More than once he jerked over to seize it, only in vain, for the rabbit by renewed effort eluded his grasp.†   (source)
  • The other he tried to slip through hers; but she eluded him nimbly, and Frome's heart, which had swung out over a black void, trembled back to safety.†   (source)
  • They were troubled and feverish hours, disturbed with dreams that were intangible, that eluded her, leaving only an impression upon her half-awakened senses of something unattainable.†   (source)
  • There was not much time, however, for thought or elusion, and she yielded as calmly as she could to the necessity of letting him overtake her.†   (source)
  • Hand-clapping and roars of laughter from the hunters greeted the exploit, while Mugridge, eluding half of his pursuers at the foremast, ran aft and through the remainder like a runner on the football field.†   (source)
  • When he had eluded the flood of temptation many times in this way he grew troubled and wondered whether the grace which he had refused to lose was not being filched from him little by little.†   (source)
  • This reward eluded him.†   (source)
  • Unlike man, whose gods are of the unseen and the overguessed, vapours and mists of fancy eluding the garmenture of reality, wandering wraiths of desired goodness and power, intangible out-croppings of self into the realm of spirit—unlike man, the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to the fire find their gods in the living flesh, solid to the touch, occupying earth-space and requiring time for the accomplishment of their ends and their existence.†   (source)
  • She did not think of him, nor her own safety, but of keeping Majesty close in the tracks of the black, of eluding the sharp spikes in the dead brush, of avoiding the treacherous loose stones.†   (source)
  • A vague dissatisfaction grew up within him as he looked on the quays and on the river and on the lowering skies and yet he continued to wander up and down day after day as if he really sought someone that eluded him.†   (source)
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