evasion.

An attempt to escape pursuit, detection, a demand, or a direct answer.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• evasion of pursuit
• evasion of a direct question
• tactics of evasion

On the page

His evasion of the patrol depended on knowing the service passages.

Fear of naming the attacker led to a long sequence of evasions.

She recognized his joke as an evasion of the question about the threats.

Usage notes

Primary category: fear. Often strategic or indirect; fear may motivate it, but concealment and dishonesty are also possible. Broader than physically running away. Usually uncountable in this sense. Count plural: evasions. Derived family (not additional inflections or records): evade; evasive.