Verb

(elud)

To evade, or escape from someone or something, especially by using cunning or skill.

* 1748 . David Hume. Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. § 26.

Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.

To shake off a pursuer; to give someone the slip.

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=December 29 , author=Paul Doyle , title=Arsenal's Theo Walcott hits hat-trick in thrilling victory over Newcastle , work=The Guardian citation , page= , passage=Podolski gave Walcott a chance to further embellish Arsenal's first-half performance when he eluded James Perch and slipped the ball through to the striker.}}

To escape understanding of; to be incomprehensible to.

Verb

(en verb)

To mimic, to simulate.

* Shakespeare

To see the life as lively mocked' as ever / Still sleep ' mocked death.

* Shakespeare

Mocking marriage with a dame of France.

To make fun of by mimicking, to taunt.

* Bible, 1 Kings xviii. 27

Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud.

* Gray

Let not ambition mock their useful toil.

To tantalise, and disappoint (the hopes of).

* Bible, Judges xvi. 13

Thou hast mocked me, and told me lies.

* 1597 , William Shakespeare, Henry IV , Part II, Act V, Scene III:

And with his spirit sadly I survive, / to mock the expectations of the world; / to frustrate prophecies, and to raze out / rotten opinion

* 1603 , William Shakespeare, Othello , Act III, Scene III:

"It is the greene-ey'd Monster, which doth mocke / The meate it feeds on."

* 1667 , John Milton, Paradise Lost :

Why do I overlive? / Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out / to deathless pain?

* Milton

He will not / Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence.

* 1765 , Benjamin Heath, A revisal of Shakespear's text , page 563 (a commentary on the "mocke the meate" line from Othello):

‘Mock’ certainly never signifies to loath. Its common signification is, to disappoint.

* 1812 , The Critical Review or, Annals of Literature , page 190:

The French revolution indeed is a prodigy which has mocked the expectations both of its friends and its foes. It has cruelly disappointed the fondest hopes of the first, nor has it observed that course which the last thought that it would have pursued.