Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that is puzzling, ambiguous, or inexplicable.
  • noun A perplexing speech or text; a riddle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A dark saying or representation, in which some known thing is concealed under obscure words or forms; a question, saying, figure, or design containing a hidden meaning which is proposed for discovery; a riddle.
  • noun Anything inexplicable to an observer, such as the means by which something is effected, the motive for a course of conduct, the cause of a phenomenon, etc.: as, how it was done is an enigma; his conduct is to me an enigma.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A dark, obscure, or inexplicable saying; a riddle; a statement, the hidden meaning of which is to be discovered or guessed.
  • noun An action, mode of action, or thing, which cannot be satisfactorily explained; a puzzle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Something puzzling, mysterious or inexplicable.
  • noun A riddle, or a difficult problem.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a difficult problem
  • noun something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin aenigma, from Greek ainigma, from ainissesthai, ainig-, to speak in riddles, from ainos, fable.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin aenigma ("riddle"), from Ancient Greek αἴνιγμα (ainigma, "dark saying, riddle").

Support

The word enigma has been adopted by Brian Enigma.

Help support Wordnik by adopting your own word here.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • He called me an Enigma and I laughed. It means, "One that is puzzling, ambiguous, or inexplicable. A perplexing speech or text; a riddle." Maybe in the sense that I cannot feel, speak in metaphors, and dream while awake. Hah... maybe he's right.

    June 29, 2009