Allusive or elusive?
allusive is an adjective meaning “that contains or makes use of allusions (indirect references or hints)”; elusive is an adjective meaning “Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) elusive is about 28 times as common as allusive.
What is the difference between allusive and elusive?
| allusive | elusive | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective |
| Meaning | that contains or makes use of allusions (indirect references or hints) | Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance Difficult to make precise |
| Example | none recorded | The elusive criminal was arrested |
| Pronunciation | /əˈluː.sɪv/ /əˈljuː.sɪv/ | /ɪˈl(j)uː.sɪv/ [ɪˈl(j)uː.zɪv] /iˈl(j)uː.sɪv/ |
| In writing | about once in every 10 million words | 3.0 times per million words |
Sources: allusive and elusive in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of allusive and elusive
allusive
- 1
that contains or makes use of allusions (indirect references or hints)
elusive
- 1
Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance
The elusive criminal was arrested
- 2
Difficult to make precise
- 3
Rarely seen
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, allusive or elusive?
allusive appears about once in every 10 million words; elusive 3.0 times per million words.
allusive about once in every 10 million wordselusive 3.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search allusive vs elusive?
“allusive vs elusive” is searched about 720 times a month on Google and 40 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“elusive vs allusive”, “allusive or elusive”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.