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# evasive

«evasive» in Mova's school dictionary: **evasive, they avoid giving a clear, direct answer, often…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

adjective (evasive; more evasive, most evasive)

### meaning for a pupil

1) If someone is evasive, they avoid giving a clear, direct answer, often because they are hiding something. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/evasive/#m1)

2) Evasive action is a quick movement to avoid danger, such as swerving or ducking. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/evasive/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In stories and the news, an evasive answer is a clue that a character or politician may be hiding the truth. In safety talk, a driver or pilot «takes evasive action» to avoid a crash. In nature, animals use evasive moves to escape predators. Phrases: «an evasive answer», «be evasive about», «take evasive action».

### examples

- When I asked who ate the cake, my brother was very evasive. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/evasive/#x1)
- The minister gave an evasive answer to the question. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/evasive/#x2)
- The pilot took evasive action to avoid the birds. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/evasive/#x3)
- The rabbit made evasive zigzags to escape the fox. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/evasive/#x4)
- Stop being evasive and tell me what happened! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/evasive/#x5)
- Her evasive reply made the detective suspicious. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/evasive/#x6)

### note

Verb: evade (to avoid); noun: evasion. Adverb: evasively. Trap: «tax evasion» (illegal, hiding money) is different from «tax avoidance» (using legal tricks).

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «evasive» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/evasive/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.