ENIGMA • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Enigma

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/ɪnˈɪgmə/ Listen

noun

enigma n. (pl. enigmas)

A dark, obscure, or inexplicable saying; a riddle; a statement, the hidden meaning of which is to be discovered or guessed. "A custom was among the ancients of proposing an enigma at festivals."

An action, mode of action, or thing, which cannot be satisfactorily explained; a puzzle; as, his conduct is an enigma.

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Etymology of 'Enigma'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Enigma" Quotes from Famous Books

... the special secret held by an Egyptian word may be found in Greek, or the secret of a Greek word in Babylonian. Language is One. The Gods who made all these languages equally could use them all, and wind them all intricately in and out, for the building up of their divine enigma. ...

— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... girl had lied; but the story had an air of truth to it. If it were a fact that there had recently been a quarrel between these cousins, whose uncousinly attitude towards each other was fast becoming clear to Mr. Taggett, then here was a conceivable key to an enigma which had puzzled him. ...

— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... attributed to her. Her character united kind-heartedness with inconsideration, imprudence with austerity, ardent feeling with great practical common-sense. Probably the emperor understood her very little at the time of his marriage, and that she long remained to him an enigma may have been one of her charms. With the impetuosity of her disposition and the intrepidity that had characterized her girlhood, she found it hard to submit to the restraints of her position, and the emperor had occasion frequently ...

— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... downwards on the edge of a table. But what immediately attracted their attention was a row of those large glass vessels like that which they had seen in the adjoining room. Each was covered with a white cloth. They hesitated a moment, for they knew that here they were face to face with the great enigma. At last Arthur pulled away the cloth from one. None of them spoke. They stared with astonished eyes. For here, too, was a strange mass of flesh, almost as large as a new-born child, but there was in it the beginnings of something ghastly human. It was shaped vaguely ...

— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... beside Filmer, motionless and flushed. Jock contemplated him from his greater height as if he were a new and startling enigma. ...

— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

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