evasive \e*va"sive\ ([-e]*v[=a]"s[i^]v), a. [Cf. F. ['e]vasif.
See Evade.]
Tending to evade, or marked by evasion; elusive; shuffling;
avoiding by artifice.
[1913 Webster]
Thus he, though conscious of the ethereal guest,
Answered evasive of the sly request. --Pope.
[1913 Webster]
Stammered out a few evasive phrases. --Macaulay.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
evasive
adj 1: deliberately vague or ambiguous; "his answers were brief,
constrained and evasive"; "an evasive statement"
2: avoiding or escaping from difficulty or danger especially
enemy fire; "pilots are taught to take evasive action"
3: skillful at eluding capture; "a cabal of conspirators, each
more elusive than the archterrorist"- David Kline [syn: elusive]
WordNet (r) 2.0
90 Moby Thesaurus words for "evasive":
ambiguous, amoral, bickering, cagey, captious, casuistic, caviling,
choplogic, close, closemouthed, conscienceless, corrupt, corrupted,
criminal, crooked, cunning, dark, deceitful, devious, discreet,
dishonest, dishonorable, dissembling, doubtful, dubious, elusive,
elusory, equivocal, equivocating, equivocatory, felonious, fishy,
fraudulent, hairsplitting, hedging, ill-got, ill-gotten, immoral,
indirect, insidious, intangible, logic-chopping, malingering,
misleading, nit-picking, not kosher, oblique, paltering, petty,
picayune, prevaricating, pussyfooting, questionable, quibbling,
rotten, secret, secretive, shady, shameless, shifty, shirking,
shuffling, sinister, sliding, slippery, sly, sophistical,
suspicious, tergiversant, tergiversating, trichoschistic, tricky,
trifling, trivial, unclear, uncommunicative, unconscienced,
unconscientious, unconscionable, underhand, underhanded, unethical,
unprincipled, unsavory, unscrupulous, unstraightforward, vague,
weasel-worded, without remorse, without shame
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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