a. [ad. Fr. évasif, -ive, f. L. ēvās- ppl. stem of ēvādĕre (see EVADE) + -IVE.]
1. Of persons: Seeking to evade; addicted to evasion, shuffling.
1725. Pope, Odyss., I. 530. Thus he, though conscious of the ethereal guest, Answer’d evasive of the sly request.
1785. Paley, Mor. Philos. (1818), II. 404. The … honest workman will be employed, in preference to … the fraudulent, and evasive.
1794. Burke, Sp. agst. W. Hastings, Wks. XV. 107. He had been dilatory, evasive, shuffling, and unwilling to pay that which, however unwilling, evasive, and shuffling, he did pay.
2. Of actions or utterances: Tending to evasion; containing or characterized by evasion. Const. of.
1744. Berkeley, Siris, § 107. 50–1. Though evasive arts will, it is feared, prevail so long as distilled spirits of any kind are allowed.
1772. Ann. Reg., 20/2. Terms apparently inoffensive, and evasive of their real and essential meaning.
1777. Sheridan, Sch. Scand., III. i. He has received nothing but evasive promises of future service.
1820. Scott, Monast., I. 301. Objections, which the Sub-Prior treated as evasive.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 451. The president, completely taken by surprise, stammered out a few evasive phrases.
3. Elusive, evanescent.
1881. C. De Kay, Vision of Nimrod, vi. 113.
| Above the cities of the plain the tender | |
| Evasive strains dropt gently from the sky. |
4. as sb. An evasive phrase or speech.
a. 1734. North, Exam. (1740), 90. The Party took Courage and followed their Game full Cry, like Hounds in View, without much Trouble about Precautions and Evasives. Ibid., 399. What may not be said and wrote, if this Author’s Evasives may pass such as—it seems,—many believed...?
Hence Evasively adv., in an evasive manner, by an evasion. Evasiveness, the quality of being evasive.
1736. Bailey (folio), Evasively, craftily, deceitfully.
1792. J. Bryant, Treat. Auth. Script., p. vii (T.). I answered evasively, or at least indeterminately.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 502. Searching questions were put, and were evasively answered.
1883. Rules of Supreme Crt., Order xix. 1. 19. When a party … denies an allegation of fact…, he must not do so evasively.
1730–6. Bailey (folio), Evasiveness, evading quality.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola, III. III. xiii. 135. That self-justifying evasiveness into which he was often hurried in public.
1877. Morley, Crit. Misc., Ser. II. 288. Most recent controversies are marked by obliqueness, evasiveness, a shiftiness of issue.
