"elusive" in the adjective sense
1. elusive
difficult to describe
"a haunting elusive odor"
2. elusive
skillful at eluding capture
"a cabal of conspirators, each more elusive than the archterrorist"- David Kline
3. elusive, subtle
difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze
"his whole attitude had undergone a subtle change"
"a subtle difference"
"that elusive thing the soul"
4. baffling, elusive, knotty, problematic, problematical, tough
making great mental demands hard to comprehend or solve or believe
"a baffling problem"
"I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast"
"a problematic situation at home"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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