1 a game, etc. that you have to think about carefully in order to answer it or do it:
a crossword puzzle * a book of puzzles for children
2 (especially AmE) = JIGSAW
3 [usuallysing.] something that is difficult to understand or explain
SYNMYSTERY:
The deeper meaning of the poem remains a puzzle. * The detectives were beginning to solve the murder. All the pieces in the puzzle were falling neatly into place.
verb [VN] to make sb feel confused because they do not understand sth:
What puzzles me is why he left the country without telling anyone.
puzzling adjective:
one of the most puzzling aspects of the crime
PHRASALVERBS
puzzle over / about sth to think hard about sth in order to understand or explain it:
Karen puzzled over the question all evening.
puzzle sth<->out to find the answer to a difficult or confusing problem by thinking carefully:
[+wh-] He was trying to puzzle out why he had been brought to the house.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for puzzle is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is puzzle a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, puzzle is tagged as noun.
Does puzzle appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — puzzle appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
