Elusive or illusive?
elusive is an adjective meaning “Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance”; illusive is an adjective meaning “Subject to or pertaining to an illusion, often used in the sense of an…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) elusive is about 16 times as common as illusive.
What is the difference between elusive and illusive?
| elusive | illusive | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective |
| Meaning | Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance Difficult to make precise | Subject to or pertaining to an illusion, often used in the sense of an unrealistic expectation or an unreachable goal or outcome |
| Example | The elusive criminal was arrested | Testing software completely is an illusive goal |
| Pronunciation | /ɪˈl(j)uː.sɪv/ [ɪˈl(j)uː.zɪv] /iˈl(j)uː.sɪv/ | /ɪˈluːsɪv/ |
| In writing | 3.0 times per million words | about once in every 5 million words |
Sources: elusive and illusive 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 elusive and illusive
elusive
- 1
Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance
The elusive criminal was arrested
- 2
Difficult to make precise
- 3
Rarely seen
illusive
- 1
Subject to or pertaining to an illusion, often used in the sense of an unrealistic expectation or an unreachable goal or outcome
Testing software completely is an illusive goal
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, elusive or illusive?
elusive appears 3.0 times per million words; illusive about once in every 5 million words.
elusive 3.0 times per million wordsillusive about once in every 5 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 elusive vs illusive?
“elusive vs illusive” is searched about 880 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“illusive vs elusive”, “elusive or illusive”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.