Elusiveness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The nature of being challenging to apprehend or clarify
2. The characteristic of resisting clear understanding or precise description
3. The state of being hard to catch, comprehend, or explain fully

Etymology: "Elusiveness" is a plain English formation: the adjective "elusive" with the suffix "-ness," which turns an adjective into a noun for a quality or state. The suffix itself is very old. It descends from Old English "-nes," which in turn traces back through Proto-Germanic forms to an ancient Indo-European suffix used to make abstract nouns from adjectives, so the word's ending has been doing this same job for well over a thousand years. The base, "elusive," is the part with the more colourful past. It comes from the Latin verb "eludere," meaning "to escape from, to get out of the way of," built from "e-" (out) and "ludere" (to play). The Latin sense of playing or mocking one's way out of a trap gives "elusive" its sense of slipping away from grasp. Because "elusiveness" simply adds "-ness" to that adjective, it inherits the same idea: the quality of being hard to pin down, catch, or explain.

Synonyms: slipperiness, intangibility, fugacity, mystery, ambiguity

Antonyms: obviousness, clarity, definiteness, perceptibility, transparency