Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A riddle in which a fanciful question is answered by a pun.
- noun A paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A conceit; a device; a hoax.
- noun A riddle in which some odd resemblance is proposed for discovery between things quite unlike, or some odd difference between similar things, the answer often involving a pun.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A kind of riddle based upon some fanciful or fantastic resemblance between things quite unlike; a puzzling question, of which the answer is or involves a pun.
- noun A question to which only a conjectural answer can be made.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A difficult
question orriddle , especially one using aplay on words in the answer. - noun A difficult
choice ordecision that must be made.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a difficult problem
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This conundrum is as old as Ardipithicus – 4. 4million years old.
Agents of the West 2009
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More broadly, a conundrum is any problem where the answer is very complex, possibly unsolvable without deep investigation.
Archive 2007-03-01 Dan 2007
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More broadly, a conundrum is any problem where the answer is very complex, possibly unsolvable without deep investigation.
A crimefighting conundrum Dan 2007
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"We ran into what we called the conundrum," he said.
Bloomberg 2010
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"We ran into what we called the conundrum," he said.
Bloomberg 2010
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"We ran into what we called the conundrum," he said.
Bloomberg 2010
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Ancelotti poses a title conundrum as the race hots up
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The global forex conundrum is morphing into a trade dilemma of sorts.
China Jumps on Down Day V. Phani Kumar 2010
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McDonnell's conundrum is that changing the complex proposal to satisfy one group is likely to cost support from another.
Looking to pick up support, McDonnell staff offering tweaks to ABC plan Rosalind Helderman 2010
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The very conundrum is a sign of how far this nation sunk. mikey Says:
nmeeber commented on the word conundrum
Ugly word.
December 3, 2006
dbmag9 commented on the word conundrum
Not so.
December 3, 2006
seanahan commented on the word conundrum
I like this word, it flows well off the tongue.
December 3, 2006
brtom commented on the word conundrum
Martin Cunningham forgot to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning.
Joyce, Ulysses, 7
January 2, 2007
tolland commented on the word conundrum
I laughed so hard hearing this word used by one of the Venture Bros.'s villains. When used in the right situations, it can be so amusing!
July 12, 2008
marky commented on the word conundrum
(in reply to 'ugly word' comment) Sorta drives home the meaning. It's a WIN.
December 23, 2008
nayanlaldas commented on the word conundrum
???????
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January 15, 2012
sibtain commented on the word conundrum
معما
October 31, 2015