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Elude   /ɪlˈud/   Listen
Elude

verb
(past & past part. eluded; pres. part. eluding)
1.
Escape, either physically or mentally.  Synonyms: bilk, evade.  "This difficult idea seems to evade her" , "The event evades explanation"
2.
Be incomprehensible to; escape understanding by.  Synonym: escape.
3.
Avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues).  Synonyms: circumvent, dodge, duck, evade, fudge, hedge, parry, put off, sidestep, skirt.  "She skirted the problem" , "They tend to evade their responsibilities" , "He evaded the questions skillfully"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Elude" Quotes from Famous Books



... gently chide me for the deceit that I had had a hand in practising upon her. She accepted my explanation that my share in that affair had been wrung from me with threats of torture, and putting it from her mind she returned to the matter of the approaching alliance she sought to elude, renewing her prayers that ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... her with his love, but the man whom she longed to help also. His pleased eyes, his lips, the way his hair fell over his forehead—She thought of him with the fond dream-passion of the maiden, that is often the shyest thing on earth, ready to veil itself and turn and elude and hide at the first chance that ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... sea with a powerful fleet, while the Romans had no ships of war worthy of the name. But the Consul App. Claudius, having contrived to elude the Carthaginian squadron, landed near the town of Messana, and defeated in succession the forces of Syracuse and Carthage. In the following year (263) the Romans followed up their success against Hiero. The two Consuls advanced to the walls of ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... escape was possible for Hawbury. A strict watch was kept. The priest had noticed on his approach that guards were posted in different directions in such a way that no fugitive from the house could elude them. He had also seen that the guard inside the house was equally vigilant. To leap from the window and run for it would be certain death, for that was the very thing which the brigands anticipated. To make a sudden rush down the stairs was not possible, ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... splendour of hopeful love, which to the most sensible minds appears like a triumph of good over all the evils of the earth. A vague idea of rehabilitation had entered the plan of their life. That it was so vague as to elude the support of argument made it only the stronger. It had presented itself to them at the instant when the woman's instinct of devotion and the man's instinct of activity receive from the strongest of illusions their most powerful impulse. The very prohibition imposed the necessity ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... days. Nor need we strip the romance from that time-honoured tale of the great master's solitude. Lying on his back beneath the dreary vault, communing with Dante, Savonarola, and the Hebrew prophets in the intervals of labour, locking up the chapel-doors in order to elude the jealous curiosity of rivals, eating but little and scarcely sleeping, he accomplished in sixteen months the first part of his gigantic task.[317] From time to time Julius climbed the scaffold and inspected the painter's progress. Dreading lest ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... forty-seven north and longitude thirty-seven degrees twenty minutes west, a rock sixty feet long and eight or ten feet high in the middle. It was at a time of low spring tides, and such a menace to navigation could easily elude observation under ordinary conditions. Captain Lloyd averred that he saw it at twenty minutes to eight on a fine, sunshiny morning, so close and clear to him that he forbore lowering ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... obliged to hold their meetings secretly, it being even rumoured that Vivaldi, who was their president, had resigned his professorship and withdrawn behind the shelter of literary employment in order to elude the observation of the authorities. Men had not yet forgotten the fate of the Neapolitan historian, Pietro Giannone, who for daring to attack the censorship and the growth of the temporal power had been driven from Naples to Vienna, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... they do meet, however, every now and then, and many sore evils does the Destroyer suffer at their hands. By faith and fortitude, however, and the occasional assistance of the magic implements he strips them of, he is enabled to baffle and elude their malice, till he is conducted, at last, to the Domdaniel cavern, where he finds them assembled, and pulls down the roof of it upon their heads and his own; perishing, like Samson, in the final destruction of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... the lantern flew from his grasp, rolling down the steps into the street. The priest heard him descend to recover the light, and relinquishing his hold upon the door, groped his way through the darkness, hoping to elude his pursuer in the building. His hand came in contact with the baluster, and he quickly ascended the rickety stairs. By this time, the guard had relighted his lantern and was peering cautiously into the hall, evidently fearing a sword thrust from out the darkness. In this instant's ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... justness of this remark. Previous to the time of Newton, no one seemed to entertain a real hope that this branch of knowledge would ever assume the form and clearness of scientific truth. The laws and properties of so ethereal a substance as light, appeared to elude the grasp of the human intellect; and hence, no one evinced the boldness to grapple directly with them. The whole region of optics was involved in mists, and those who gave their attention to this department of knowledge, ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... would not give up his slave for the sake of recovering them, indeed he would be well aware that we could not keep them in captivity. Several times I thought we were on the point of overtaking the men, but on each occasion they managed to elude us. Whether they still fancied that Indians were following them, we could not tell. Possibly they might have guessed that we were white men, though they could not tell the number of our party, and at all events did not think it worth while to hazard a conflict, now ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... Duane, "there are a few subjects for conversation which do not include the centipede and the polka-dotted dickey-bird. These subjects Kathleen and I furtively indulge in when we can arrange to elude you." ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... briskly up to his crease, delivers the ball, and, whether it be a "fast round-arm" or a "slow under-hand," his endeavor is so to bowl it that the ball shall elude the batsman's defence and strike the wicket. The batsman endeavors, first and foremost, to protect his wicket, and, secondly, if possible, to hit the ball away, so that he may make a run or runs. This is accomplished when he and his partner at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... after years, when gazing on foreign sights and foreign towns, even after I had been living for a long time in the same place, I had a curious feeling that, however beautiful and fascinating it all might be, or perhaps for that very reason, it was dreamland, unreality, which would one day elude me and vanish; reality was the Round Tower in Copenhagen and all that lay about it. It was ugly, and altogether unattractive, but it was reality. That you always ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... continued his journey under the escort of the Seigneur de Blaumont, Marshal of Burgundy, at the head of thirty horse. Their pace was rapid to elude the pursuit of Tristan l'Hermite. The prince needed no spurs to make him flee. Even if his father did not intend to have him drowned in a sack his immediate liberty was certainly in jeopardy. "In truth this thing ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... or any of the ornaments of an orator, deserves to be considered as one of the most eloquent men in the world, if eloquence may be said to consist of the power of seizing the attention with irresistible force, and never permitting it to elude the grasp until the hearer has received the conviction which the speaker intends.... He possesses one original and almost superhuman faculty,—the faculty of developing a subject by a single glance of his mind, and detecting at once the very point ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... school, things kept on going wrong. In the Geometry class she was assigned the very "proposition" she'd been praying to elude; and, then, she was warned by the teacher—and not too privately—that if she wasn't careful she'd fail to pass; and that, of course, would mean she couldn't graduate. At the last minute to fail!—after Miss Simpson had started making ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... submissive; their mothers, however, should not be inexorable. To make a young person tractable, she ought not to be made unhappy; to make her modest she ought not to be rendered stupid. On the contrary, I should not be displeased at her being permitted to use some art, not to elude punishment in case of disobedience, but to exempt herself from the necessity of obeying. It is not necessary to make her dependence burdensome, but only to let her feel it. Subtilty is a talent natural to the sex; and as I am persuaded, all our natural inclinations are right ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... admiral, known from his fearlessness as "Old Dreadnought"; distinguished himself in engagements at Puerto Bello, Cathagena, Cape Finisterre, and the Bay of Lagos, where, after a "sea hunt" of 24 hours, he wrecked and ruined a fine French fleet, eager to elude his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... their subordinate parts, the great system should require for its perfection, parts that are not only subordinate to others, but imperfect in themselves? These are questions that never can be explained, and might be useless if known. On this subject providence has thought fit to elude our curiosity, satisfied with granting us ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... placed in irons, until they made deep sores around his ankles. As he appeared very submissive, the sorest ankle was relieved. Being so badly crippled, he was thought safe. But supplying himself with asafetida, which he occasionally rubbed over the soles of his shoes, to elude the scent of bloodhounds, he again followed the north star, and finally reached our home. His ankles were still unhealed. He had succeeded in breaking the iron with a stone, during the first and second days of his ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... one day that she was less strong against herself than she had previously been. On that occasion she did not elude his advances so abruptly as usual. Jupillon felt that she stopped short. Germinie felt it even more keenly than he; but she was at the end of her efforts, exhausted with the torture she had undergone. The love which, coming from another, she had turned aside from Jupillon, had slowly taken ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... stream of considerable magnitude over which they cross. They ride in the water to elude their pursuers. Jones and Cole give them information relative to their friends. The joyful reception of the news. Arrival at the base of the Sierra Nevada. Fear of crossing the mountains in the snow. They ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... thy Countenance were mask'd With hundred vizards, could a thought of thine How small soe'er, elude me. What thou saw'st Was shown, that freely thou mightst ope thy heart To the waters of peace, that flow diffus'd From their eternal fountain. I not ask'd, What ails theeor such cause as he doth, who Looks only with that eye which sees no more, When spiritless ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... his trial, Dr. Beaumont exhibited an illustration of the scriptural precept, by combining the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove. Serene, mild, thoughtful, acute, and penetrating, he was capable of using every fair occasion to elude his enemies, and was able also to submit to the will of Heaven, provided their malice should be permitted to triumph. He prepared Constantia for the worst, by assuring her that so many had unjustly ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... its running on the downward stretch. The strange, cruel urge of bit and spur, the crazed rider who stuck like a burr upon him, the shots and smoke added terror to his natural violent temper. He ran himself off his feet. But he could not elude that relentless horse behind him. The running of Blanco Sol was that of a sure, remorseless driving power—steadier—stronger—swifter with every long ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... "the old priest was sure he had discovered the way to elude our vigilance when he chose to put his plan into execution; and his ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... fields," cried Henry. "I have lain in wait for him long; but he has eluded me, and is making his way again towards the old ruins, where I am sure he has some hiding-place that he thinks will elude all search. There, I see his dusky ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... hitherto bounded the exploratory excursions of other adventurers. With this view, they travelled up the valley of the Shenandoah, and crossing James river and some of its branches, proceeded as far as the Roanoke, when Salling was taken captive by a party of Cherokees. Morlin was fortunate enough to elude their pursuit, and effect a safe retreat ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... having requested the assistance of our surgeon, Dr Solander easily got admittance in that character on the 25th, and received many marks of civility from the people. On the 26th, before day-break, Mr Banks also found means to elude the vigilance of the people in the guard-boat, and got on shore; he did not however go into the town, for the principal objects of his curiosity were to be found in the fields: to him also the people behaved with great civility, many of them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... them exceeds the usual size and grows into a monster, when it poisons fountains with its spittle, scorches herbage with its breath, and spreads ruin wherever it crawls, we shoot at it with military engines. Trifling evils may cheat us and elude our observation, but we gird up our loins to attack great ones. One sick person does not so much as disquiet the house in which he lies; but when frequent deaths show that a plague is raging, there is a general outcry, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... the relentless enemy of the Duchess. Disputes arose between them as to certain details, which seem to have been legally decided in the widow's favor. On the night of December 22, however, forty men, disguised in black and fantastically tricked out to elude detection, surrounded her palace. Through the long galleries and chambers hung with arras, eight of them went, bearing torches, in search of Vittoria and her brothers. Marcello escaped, having fled the house under suspicion of the murder of one of his own followers. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... gathering cat-tails in the river marshes an alert, nervous little brown bird rises startled from the rushes and tries to elude you as with short, jerky flight it goes deeper and deeper into the marsh, where even the rubber boot may not follow. It closely resembles two other birds found in such a place, the swamp sparrow and the short-billed marsh wren; but you may know by ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... [Footnote: This circumstance actually occurred to the passengers on board the Argyle steam-boat, in the autumn of the year 1814.]—A poor little lark was pursued, at no great distance from our vessel, by a merciless hawk; the little creature continued, for some time, with surprising dexterity, to elude the grasp of its intended destroyer. At length, quite exhausted by its efforts, it alighted on our boat. I incautiously ran to catch it, purposing to shield it from the threatened danger. Not, however, comprehending my design, the terrified bird again took flight, ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux

... though Bruce knew he had no time to waste from his life-and-death mission. He could not elude this enemy, so he must finish him ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... and mutability, instead of the immutability of its source. Philosophy was but another name for uncertainty; and after the mind had successively deified Nature and its own conceptions, without any practical result but toilsome occupation; when the reality it sought, without or within, seemed ever to elude its grasp, the intellect, baffled in its higher flights, sought advantage and repose in aiming at truth of a ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... the earth, it comes within the range of our telescopes. We can generally anticipate when this will occur, and we can tell to what point of the heavens the telescope is to be pointed so as to discern the comet at its next return to perihelion. The comet cannot elude the grasp of the mathematician. He can tell when and where the comet is to be found, but no one can say ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... again, was a vanity of affection; as not presumably ignorant of the critical tests of death, by apposition of feathers, glasses, and reflection of figures, which dead eyes represent not: which, however not strictly verifiable in fresh and warm cadavers, could hardly elude the test, in corpses of four ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... subterfuges to outwit the tithingman and elude his vigilance on the Sabbath. We all remember the amusing incident in "Oldtown Folks." A similar one really happened. Two gay young sparks driving through the town on the Sabbath were stopped by the ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... valour, as the first in place; That when with wondering eyes our martial bands Behold our deeds transcending our commands, Such, they may cry, deserve the sovereign state, Whom those that envy dare not imitate! Could all our care elude the gloomy grave, Which claims no less the fearful and the brave, For lust of fame I should not vainly dare In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war. But since, alas! ignoble age must come, Disease, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... neighbourhood was raised in the pursuit of me. In that part of the country (as in ours) the houses and villages were skirted with woods, or shrubberies, and the bushes were so thick that a man could readily conceal himself in them, so as to elude the strictest search. The neighbours continued the whole day looking for me, and several times many of them came within a few yards of the place where I lay hid. I then gave myself up for lost entirely, ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... about half a dozen savages, to the spot, where I found the remainder of our men firmly secured, by having their hands tied behind them, their legs lashed together, and each man fastened to a stake that had been driven into the ground for that purpose. There was no possibility to elude the vigilance of these miscreants. As soon as night shut in, a large quantity of brushwood was piled around us, and nothing now was wanting but the fire to complete this horrible tragedy. Then the same ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... one afternoon, Jane managed to elude her father's observation, to leave the schooner and to disappear completely. And that night came a letter. She and Miguel Carlos Speranza had been in correspondence all the time, how or through whose connivance is a mystery never disclosed. He had come to Savannah, in accordance ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... in nature so closely combined with other substances, as to elude the observation of chemists, or render it extremely difficult to obtain it in its separate state. This is the case with phosphorus, which is always so intimately combined with other substances, that its ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... these mysterious ties the busy pow'r Of mem'ry her ideal train preserves Intire; or, when they would elude her watch, Reclaims their fleeting footsteps from the waste Of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various

... days, however desirous I might be for it; unless some priest came to a chapel, which was a quarter of a league from our house, and let us know of it. As the carriage could not be brought out from the courtyard without being heard, I could not elude him. I made an arrangement with the guardian of the Recolets, who was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... made no answer. Already so near the attainment of his end, he saw it again elude his grasp. Again had he labored, struggled, in vain. This was the second revolution which he had brought about, with this his favorite plan in view: two regents were indebted to him for their greatness, and both had refused him the one thing for which he had made them regents; neither had ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... unfrequented, the assassins retired with their booty to the mountains, intending to penetrate through the woods to some remote settlements on the southern side, where they hoped to secure themselves, and elude all pursuit. Early intelligence of the crime had, however, been conveyed to Havanna. The assassins were pursued by a detachment of the Chasseurs del Rey, with their dogs; and in the course of a very few days they were every one apprehended and ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... then immediately set Henley free, tell him where she is, where I am to be found, and leave him to seek his own mode of vengeance! Should he resort to the paltry refuge of law, I own that then I would elude pursuit. But should the spirit of man stir within him, and should he dare me to contention, I would fly to meet him in the mortal strife! He is worthy of my arm, and I would shew how worthy I am ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... old cloud of wild yearning would come over him, and he would rattle the bars of his madhouse until he could fight his way out to the clean air of Heaven under the stars. And at such times he would elude Dolan, and walk far away from the town in fields and meadows and woods struggling back to sanity—sometimes through a long night. But as the years passed, this truth came to be a part of his consciousness—that in some measure ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... the Ides and the two days following. Pray forgive me for that, since you think so much of Macro. But, as you love me, dine with me on the 2nd, and bring Pilia. You must absolutely do so. On the 1st I think of dining at Crassipes' suburban villa as a kind of inn. I thus elude the decree of the senate. Thence to my town house after dinner, so as to be ready to be at Milo's in the morning.[552] There, then, I shall see you, and shall march you on with me. My ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... native shores. He was not particular as to his quarters—he was clever at disguising himself; and as there are in Liverpool courts and slums into which no policeman cares to venture, it was not very difficult for Dent to elude ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade

... Army flying from the Helles front in frantic efforts to escape the surrounding threatened by this landing in their rear. We saw them abandoning their impregnable positions at Achi Baba, abandoning the forts of the Narrows, and retreating, if they could elude ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... conspiracy against the security of the person and property of the subject. We knew that the tribunals would now be filled with magistrates whose prejudices, principles, and interest, must be in perpetual hostility against our national laws, and that the new men would seek to elude or crush our juridical system. The royal magistrates, as it was but too evident, would be the relations, the friends, or the creatures of the nobility, the emigrants, and of all who claimed to be restored to their rights and privileges. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... they will become self-helping, and in proportion as they are much helped they will become helpless? What folly is it to ignore these results because they are not direct, and not immediately visible. Tho slowly wrought out, they are inevitable. We can no more elude the laws of human development than we can elude the law of gravitation; and so long as they hold ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... Napoleon slipped away from Elba with some twelve hundred men, and, managing to elude the British guardships, disembarked at Cannes on 1 March and advanced northward. Troops sent out to arrest the arch-rebel were no proof against the familiar uniform and cocked hat: they threw their own hats in the air amid ringing shouts of vive l'empereur. Everywhere the adventurer ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... very short digression here. It may seem unaccountable that a plant of large growth, distinct flower, and characteristic appearance, should elude the eye of persons trained to such pursuits, and encouraged to spend money on the slightest prospect of success, for half a century and more. But if we recall the circumstances it ceases to astonish. I myself spent many months in the forests of Borneo, Central ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... very generous in the physical equipment of the species. Most monkeys lack the sharp teeth that enable the tiger to defy the avenger of his misdeeds. Without exception they all lack the keen scent that helps the deer to elude its pursuers. But their mental faculties more than compensate for such bodily deficiencies. In the Abyssinian highlands the mornings are often cold enough to cover the grass with hoar-frost, yet the frost-dreading baboons choose that very time to raid the corn-fields of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... true, as we have just explained, that the real nature of the tax is to pay, according to a particular form of wages, for certain services which elude the usual form of exchange, it follows that all producers, enjoying these services equally as far as personal use is concerned, should contribute to their payment in equal portions. The share for each, therefore, would be a fraction of his exchangeable product, or, in other ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... and intelligence is carried on with great subtility and treachery by profligate citizens, who, in vessels ostensibly navigating our own waters from port to port, under cover of night or other circumstances favoring their turpitude, find means to convey succors or intelligence to the enemy and elude the penalty of the law. This lawless traffic and intercourse is also carried on to a great extent in craft whose capacity exempts them from the regulations of the revenue laws and from the vigilance which ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson

... her soul, some intuition guided her through her hasty arrangements to take the most effectual means to elude pursuit ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... "this is very pleasant... very.... You elude me, you know, which is unkind with two so old acquaintances. Of course I know that you dislike me, and I don't suppose that I have the highest opinion of you, but, nevertheless, we should be interested ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit—with will and energy, and virtue and purity—that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself, you could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would; seized against your will you will elude the grasp like an essence—you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... difficulty in getting over this road; fearing that the troops from Kentucky would be concentrated at or near Cincinnati, and that every effort would be made to intercept him there. If these troops lined the railroad and were judiciously posted, he knew it would be extremely difficult to elude them or cut his way through them. He believed that if he could pass this ordeal safely, the success of the expedition would be assured, unless the river should be so high that the boats would be able to transport troops to intercept him ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... Beatrice's history, and was thinking of her only as the picture seems to reveal her character. Yes, yes; it was terrible guilt, an inexpiable crime, and she feels it to be so. Therefore it is that the forlorn creature so longs to elude our eyes, and forever vanish away into ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... life is strongest and passion is at its height; to avoid the terrors of expectation and escape the lingering paraphernalia of sick chambers and deathbed scenes; to shirk the stuffy and inactive hours, marked by nothing but medicines and unwelcome meals; to elude the doctor's feigned encouragements, the sympathy of relations anxious to resume their ordinary pursuits, the buzzing of the parson in the ear, the fading of the casement into that "glimmering square"—should we not all go a long way round to seek so merciful a deliverance? "I will not die in my ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... our interrogating its workmen or understanding its methods. The intellect often displays proudly her works; she has the assurance to attempt to answer questions about all things else in heaven and earth; but when her life is the subject of inquiry, that life seems to elude her own observation. We see in the evening sky stars so dim that the eye cannot fix upon them; we only catch glimpses of them when we are looking at some other point aside; the moment we turn the eye full upon them, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... Peter leant over the low white wall and gazed into grey shivering gardens. So could they show aloof contempt; so could they elude the rioting dust. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... French army, I made my way for seven days and nights over mountains to the Rhine, which to the south of Baden forms the boundary between Germany and Switzerland. After a four-hour crawl on hands and knees I was able to elude the sentries along the Rhine. Plunging in, I made for the Swiss shore. After being carried several miles down the stream, being frequently submerged by the rapid currents, I finally reached the opposite ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... a staggering blow, and I own I felt for the moment an utter despair. In the depths of the forest land, could we but gain it, we might elude the search of men, but not the unerring ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... article of so much value. If that providential puff of air had not enabled me to throw the Marian alongside his yacht, I am satisfied, in the light of subsequent events, that he would have made an attempt to elude me. He could have gone on shore in the tender, lived in the woods, or at the cabin of some settler, for a week or more, until I was tired of waiting for him, and then taken to his yacht, and escaped by the ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic

... and addressed the youth in angry accents: "Who are you, bold youth, who thus invade my abode, and what do you want with me?" Aristaeus replied, "Proteus, you know already, for it is needless for any one to attempt to deceive you. And do you also cease your efforts to elude me. I am led hither by divine assistance, to know from you the cause of my misfortune and how to remedy it." At these words the prophet, fixing on him his gray eyes with a piercing look, thus spoke: "You received the merited reward of your deeds, by which Eurydice met her death, for in flying from ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... "natural selection" Bates, Wallace and Poulton have explained the value of "mimicry" as an aid to beasts, birds, insects, as they elude their enemies or lie unsuspected on the watch for prey. The resemblances thus worked out through successive generations attest the astonishing plasticity of bodily forms, a plasticity which would be incredible were not its evidence under our eyes in ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... reached their acme during the reigns of Uda and Daigo (888-930), when people living in the vicinity of a manor were ruthlessly robbed and plundered by the intendant and his servants, and when it became habitual to elude the payment of taxes by making spurious assignments of lands to influential officials in the capital. In vain was the ownership of lands by powerful nobles interdicted, and in vain its purchase by provincial governors: the metropolis ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... whom he was obliged to give necessary instructions regarding the future care of the children. Great excitement immediately prevailed among the parishioners and the many visitors, and they quietly surrounded the rectory in order to prevent his escape. The pastor, however, managed to elude them and made his way through a path in the garden which had been overlooked and hastened to ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous

... day—and it was a matter of no little difficulty to elude the guards he himself had placed there—to inform Mercedes of the escape of Alvarado, and to advise her that he expected the return of that young man with the troops of the Viceroy at ten o'clock that night. He bade her be of good ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... to elude me by ingenious devices innumerable, and always finding himself frustrated, he entered a chamber leading from the Court of the Eunuchs, and had gained on me sufficiently to disappear ere I reached the entrance. I rushed through after ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... Holden was wary and stolidly refused to disclose or share the knowledge of the place of the lode with anyone. He averred that he was going to make his fortune by it. Detectives were put upon his trail in his roaming about the fields, but he managed to elude all efforts at discovery. Being an intemperate man, one cold night after indulging in his cups, he was found by the roadside stark and stiff. Many rude attempts and imperfect searches have been made upon the assurances of Holden to discover the existence ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various

... had been murdered or carried off into slavery, the pirates themselves were nowhere to be seen. At last it occurred to Captain Grant that in all probability the pirates were receiving constant information of their movements, and had thus managed to elude them. He therefore determined to fit out three boats, which would, by being able to steal along shore, and pull head to wind, be more likely to ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... roams the far reaches of absolutely unchanged, unbroken forest and prairie leagues, and has knowledge of white men only in bartering furs at the scattered trading-posts, where locomotive and telegraph are unknown; still the wild Buffalo elude the hunters, fight the Wolves, wallow, wander, and breed; and still there is hoofed game by the million to be found where the Saxon is as seldom seen as on the Missouri in the times of Lewis and Clarke. Only we must seek it all, not in the West, but in the far North-west; and for "Missouri and ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton

... with fevered strain, High office or golden prize to gain, Rest both weary heart and head, And think, when thou'lt shudder in death's cold clasp, How earthly things will elude thy grasp, At that ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... wait any longer and wrung my father's consent from him, though he thinks we are right. And I believe we shall have a great and grand country some day that soldiers will be proud of defending. I go this very night with a party of young men who have planned to elude observation. And so—good-by." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Mr. Rossitur, she is right," said that gentleman; "a fallacy might as well elude Ithuriel's spear as the sense of a pure spirit—there is no need of written codes. Make your apologies, man, and confess yourself ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... though the blow made him bleed, he did not fall, and would have killed his assailant if Rogers had not shot him dead.[643] The firing lasted about two hours. At length some of the Canadians gave way, and the rest of the French and Indians followed.[644] They broke into small parties to elude pursuit, and reuniting towards evening, made their bivouac on a ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... of hide-and-seek with Nuflo instead of with Rima began on the following morning. He was cunning; so was I. Going out and concealing myself among the bushes, I began to watch the hut. That I could elude Rima's keener eyes I doubted; but that did not trouble me. She was not in harmony with the old man, and would do nothing to defeat my plan. I had not been long in my hiding-place before he came out, followed by his two dogs, and going to some distance ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... sidestep in such a manner as to elude Rhodes's manoeuvres to prevent him breaking through, and ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... right and left, without hurting anybody—the objects of his vengeance contriving to elude him in the dark. Most of the sturdy blows which he dealt, using his arms like flails, fell upon the railings of the seats, and only bruised his hands. Just as he had caught a boy by the collar, and was about to take a twist in his hair, the door opened, and a light appeared. It came from three ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... further shows how highly mobile forces, such as those of the Boers, can withdraw from a combat to avoid defeat, and by scattering to elude pursuit, and then, by reassembling where least expected, can strike a sudden blow at the enemy's weakest point. That they failed to accomplish more was due to their ignorance of ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... forbade the inhabitants on pain of death to go into the fields in search of relief, placing soldiers at all the outlets to the country, with orders to fire upon those who should attempt to transgress his orders. A woman, however, called Maldonata, was artful enough to elude the vigilance of the guards, and escape. After wandering about the country for a long time, she sought for shelter in a cavern, but she had scarcely entered it when she espied a lioness, the sight of which terrified her. ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... short time indeed before Malcolm's services were called into requisition, for the very first night several of the drivers, who had been pressed into the service, managed to elude the vigilance of ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... with a yell that rang in echoes along the margin of the forest, and bounded towards the cover of the buildings, with high and active leaps. Two or three muskets sent their streaks of flame across his path, but seemingly without success. Jumping in a manner to elude the certainty of their fire, the unharmed savage gave forth another yell of triumph, and disappeared among the angles of the dwellings. His cries were understood, for answering whoops were heard in the fields, and the foe without again rallied to ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... allowed to be alone, when this could be helped, lest he would attempt to teach himself. But these were unwise precautions, since they but whetted his appetite for learning and incited him to many secret schemes to elude the vigilance of his master and mistress. Everything now contributed to his enlightenment and prepared him for that freedom for which he thirsted. His occasional contact with free colored people, his visit to the wharves where he could watch the vessels going and coming, ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... because the life that made it home has fled; when Jericho has to be attacked on the morrow, and the Jordan crossed; when lover and friend stand aloof; when light is fading before dimming eyes, and names and faces elude the grasp of the aged mind; when the last coal is turning to grey ash; when the rush of the river is heard in the valley below—Jesus says, I come. It is in the hour of desolation, when Lazarus has been in the grave four days ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... leagues away; and he firmly believed that he could successfully elude his pursuers as soon as he gained ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... Eustace Le Neve didn't seem to get much nearer any permanent appointment than ever. He began to tire at last of applying unsuccessfully for every passing vacancy. Now and then he got odd jobs, to be sure; but odd jobs won't do for a man to marry upon; and serious work seemed always to elude him. Walter Tyrrel did his best, no doubt, to hunt up all the directors of all the companies he knew; but no posts fell vacant on any line they were connected with. It grieved Walter to the heart, for he had always had the sincerest friendship for Eustace Le Neve; and now that Eustace ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... to read them. The passage of Scripture often occurs to me when I take up these earlier works of Brandes: "He rejoiceth like a strong man to run a race." He handles language with the zest and vigor of conscious mastery. There is no shade of meaning which is so subtle as to elude his grip. Things which I should have said, a priori, were impossible to express in Danish he expresses with scarcely a sign of effort; and however new and surprising his phrase is, it is never awkward, never cumbrous, never apparently conscious of ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... about the year 1602, near the confines of York, Nottingham, and Leicester, and chose for its pastor John Robinson. They gathered for worship secretly, and were compelled to change their places of meeting in order to elude the pursuit of spies and soldiers. After enduring many cruel sufferings, Robinson, with the greater part of his congregation, determined to escape persecution by becoming pilgrims in a foreign land. The doctrines ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... of more worth than kingdoms! far more precious 'Than all the crimson treasures of life's fountain! Oh let it not elude ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... Our one chance now lay in abandoning our horses and crawling deep into the covert of the low oaks where cavalry would have much ado to follow. This we promptly did, and for twenty minutes we managed to elude them, so that my hopes began to grow. But unhappily a knot of officers on the ridge above had watched this manoeuvre through their telescopes, and now detached small parties of infantry down either side of the pass to beat the ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... of Martinsville, Virginia, calls my attention to marked difference in character between the red fox and the gray. The red fox, he says, depends upon his legs to elude the hounds, and will sometimes lead the hunt twenty-five miles from the place where he gets up, but the gray fox depends on cunning, and is more prone to run a few ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... haste, he stooped and kissed her before she could rally from the staggering surprise of the intention she read in his eyes too late to elude. Then, with the coolest bravado in the world, he turned on his ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... accommodate him. He would try all manner of little wary ruses to entrap somebody into an offensive remark, and his face would light up now and then when he fancied he was fairly on the scent of a fight, but invariably his victim would elude his toils and then he would show a disappointment that was almost pathetic. The landlord, Johnson, was a meek, well-meaning fellow, and Arkansas fastened on him early, as a promising subject, and gave him no rest day or night, for awhile. On the fourth morning, Arkansas got ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable strategic position between me ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... one of the most ingenious men. He has learned the gipsy art of dyeing his face; and he can elude the closest observer. When he falls into the power of the ministers of the law, he is shielded by the efforts of the heaviest capitalists who have engaged in the slave-trade; and they honor all his demands. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... fictitious characters—mythical representatives of strength, cruelty, stupidity, and lust for blood? Though they had seven-leagued boots, you remember all sorts of little whipping-snapping Tom Thumbs used to elude and outrun them. They were so stupid that they gave into the most shallow ambuscades and artifices: witness that well-known ogre, who, because Jack cut open the hasty-pudding, instantly ripped open his own stupid waistcoat and interior. They were cruel, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the days in Paris when she had so successfully assumed the garb of the soeur de bon secours, and kept nightly vigils beside the bed of Maurice. Was there no disguise under which she could make her way to the count? But the doubt that she could elude the countess's scrutinizing eyes,—the certainty of the violent scene which must ensue if Madame de Gramont discovered her,—made her reluctantly relinquish the attempt. Then she clung to the hope that her aunt would not, while Count Tristan lay in so perilous ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... Whenever I tried to make her talk about the captain she would change the subject of conversation, or evade my insinuations with a tact and a shrewdness which astonished and delighted me at the same time, for everything she said bore the impress of grace and wit. Yet she did not elude ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... them with giant steps along the waves, and now gaining rapidly upon them. His terrific pace, indeed, was two or three times as swift as theirs, poor little things! and the greedy dolphin was fully as quick-sighted as the flying-fish which were trying to elude him; for whenever they varied their flight in the smallest degree, he lost not the tenth part of a second in shaping a new course, so as to cut off the chase; while they, in a manner really not unlike that of the hare, doubled more than ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... brilliant parliamentarian, M. Hymans, as first plenipotentiary to the Conference. He was assisted by the chief of the Socialist party, M. Vandervelde, and by an eminent authority on international law, M. Van den Heuvel. But for reasons which elude analysis, none of the three delegates hit it off with the duumvirate who were spinning the threads of the world's destinies. M. Hymans, however, by his warmth, sincerity, and courage impressed the representatives of the lesser states, won their confidence, became their ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... stirred Black Rock and the camps with a thrill of expectant delight. Nowadays, when I find myself forced to leave my quiet smoke in my studio after dinner at the call of some social engagement which I have failed to elude, I groan at my hard lot, and I wonder as I look back and remember the pleasurable anticipation with which I viewed the approaching ball. But I do not wonder now any more than I did then at the eager delight of the men who for seven days in the week swung their picks up in the dark breasts ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor

... another person. But to-night he lived them over again; he retraced the different gradations of darkness through which he had passed, from the moment, so soon after his extraordinary marriage, when it came over him that she already repented, and meant, if possible, to elude all her obligations. This was the moment when he saw why she had reserved herself—in the strange vow she extracted from him—an open door for retreat; the moment, too, when her having had such an inspiration (in the midst of her momentary good faith, if good faith it had ever been) ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James

... day that His will may be done, and that His kingdom may come. How can you utter this prayer with sincerity when you prefer your own will to His, and make His law yield to the vain pretexts with which your self-love seeks to elude it? Can you make this prayer—you who disturb His reign in your heart by so many impure and vain desires? You, in fine, who fear the coming of His reign, and do not desire that God should grant what you seem to pray for? No! ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... objects that met us on our way. The sullen crocodile basking in the sun, sank noiselessly; a splash would be heard, and a four feet albicore would fling himself madly into the air, striving vainly to elude the ominous black triangle that cut the water like a knife close in his rear. Small chance for the poor fugitive, with the ravenous shark following silent and inexorable. We lay on our oars and watched the result. The hunted fish doubles, springs aloft, ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... upon me. But I was somewhat reconciled to it by a secret conviction that the abominable little demon had himself come out upon an equally discreditable expedition, which I soon detected from the infinite pains he took to elude observation. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... Larger objects elude their grasp, while they fasten eagerly on the light and insignificant. They fidget themselves and others to death with incessant anxiety about nothing. A part of their dress that is awry keeps them in a fever of restlessness and impatience; they sit picking their teeth, or paring their nails, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... Tallboys, "that men are so much afraid of the discussion that they try to elude it with empty compliment under which is couched ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... friends, we've got to make them our friends. They're both much better than they were. They must be encouraged!' said the wise young Daniel, with a little nod. Then as she saw or felt that the big matron might elude her vigilance and break out into indiscretion, 'Why, we had a reporter in from the Morning Magnifier only to-day. He said, "The public seems to have got tired of reading that you spit and scratch and prod policemen with your hatpins. Now, do you mind saying what is ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... to their situation, these provinces in the south-east of the Continent continued from time to time to elude some of the stricter regulations and restrictions which were supposed to be applied to the whole Continent. Thus at the end of the sixteenth century the Governorship of the River Plate was entrusted to Hernando Arias de Saavedra, who is more familiarly known as Hernandarias. ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel



Words linked to "Elude" :   bewilder, baffle, break loose, vex, circumvent, get away, stick, sidestep, refuse, resist, eluding, puzzle, avoid, nonplus, elusion, get, defy, elusive, amaze, perplex, mystify, quibble, dumbfound, gravel, flummox, beat, stupefy, pose, beg



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