evasive

Evasive means dodging instead of answering. The minister who speaks for a full minute and tells you nothing; the friend who changes the subject every time money comes up.

You are evasive about something, you give an evasive answer, you reply evasively. The word is an accusation: it says the dodging is deliberate, which is why it stings more than shy or vague. The family runs verb, noun, adjective — evade, evasion, evasive — and tax evasion is the criminal member of it, illegal in a way that tax avoidance is not. There is a second, physical sense with no blame in it at all: evasive action is a sharp movement made to avoid a crash or an attack, so a pilot takes evasive action and so does a driver on ice.

Phrases it lives in

• take evasive action — move sharply to avoid a danger