enigma
Americannoun
-
enigmas,
plural
-
enigmata
plural (Chiefly Archaic)
-
a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation.
His disappearance is an enigma that has given rise to much speculation.
- Synonyms:
- problem
-
a person of puzzling or contradictory character.
To me he has always been an enigma, one minute completely insensitive, the next moved to tears.
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a saying, question, picture, etc., containing a hidden meaning; riddle.
-
(initial capital letter) a German-built enciphering machine developed for commercial use in the early 1920s and later adapted and appropriated by German and other Axis powers for military use through World War II.
noun
Usage
What does enigma mean? An enigma is someone or something that’s puzzling, mysterious, or difficult to make sense of. The word enigma can also mean a riddle, but it’s more often used to refer to something that’s so perplexing that it seems like a riddle (and perhaps was intended to seem like one), as in That book is an enigma—I have no idea what it’s really about. If you call a person an enigma, you mean that they’re hard to figure out—the reasons behind what they say and do are not easily understood. Some people try to be enigmas to be mysterious. The adjective enigmatic can be used to describe someone or something that’s puzzling or mysterious. Example: I’ve known him for years, but he’s still a total enigma to me—I have no idea what his interests are or what he’s really like.
Synonym Usage
See puzzle.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of enigma
First recorded in 1530–40; from Latin aenigma, from Greek aínigma, equivalent to ainik- (stem of ainíssesthai “to speak in riddles,” derivative of aînos fable) + -ma noun suffix of result
Explanation
Use the noun enigma to refer to something that is a puzzle or a mystery. Why do you have to learn difficult words like this? That is an enigma. Traveling to English from Greek by means of the Latin word for "riddle," enigma refers to something or someone that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to figure out. Many things have been named Enigma, including a rock band, a video game, a rollercoaster ride, and a very famous coding machine used in World War II.
Vocabulary lists containing enigma
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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The Thing About Jellyfish
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Perhaps if Short weren’t associated with a detective noir masterpiece, she would never have become a useful metaphor for the corruption and rot associated with Hollywood and Los Angeles, or an eternal enigma.
From Salon ● Sep. 18, 2026
For many Americans, the price of prescription drugs is an enigma.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026
When Todd Haynes made his 1995 masterpiece “Safe”—which cast Julianne Moore as a Los Angeles housewife under siege by myriad illnesses—environmental disease was an enigma.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
I have now spoken to more patients and doctors about why this condition remains such an enigma.
From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2026
In spite of her terrifying frankness and overwhelming naïveté, he really knew nothing about her and he was tired of living with an enigma.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
It pitted the “unfledged, unarmed chemist” on one side, while “on the other side, responding with enigmas, stood Matter.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
Despite decades of study, dark energy remains one of science's most puzzling enigmas.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 6, 2025
Not that he necessarily wants those enigmas solved: “I want there to be some mystery left in the world.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2025
“Severance” amplifies its intrigue without falling into the second-season trap of making key enigmas inscrutable or boring, a trap too many puzzle-box shows tumble into when challenged to top their triumphant first seasons.
From Salon ● Jan. 17, 2025
To all these, and other sacred enigmas of like nature, the key had been given us.
From The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation by Edward Maitland
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
