jigsaw puzzle

[jig-saw puhz-uhl]

noun

1. Also called picture puzzle. a set of irregularly cut pieces of pasteboard, wood, or the like that form a picture or design when fitted together.

2. any complex, confusing situation, condition, or item, as one composed of seemingly diverse or unrelated elements.

jigsaw puzzle

noun

1. a puzzle in which the player has to reassemble a picture that has been mounted on a wooden or cardboard base and cut into a large number of irregularly shaped interlocking pieces

Word History and Origins

Origin of jigsaw puzzle¹

First recorded in 1905–10

Example Sentences

To solve what amounted to one of history’s greatest jigsaw puzzles, the INA put together a team of Turkish and American archaeology students and put them to work.

Read more on Literature

The diffuse structure of nonlinear novels engaged readers in a new and unexpected way, inviting them to piece together scattered episodes in the manner of a jigsaw puzzle.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

But miles beneath the soil and sand, the mountains and oceans, Earth’s lithosphere is broken into a clumsy jigsaw puzzle of rock.

Read more on Literature

But standing in the way of such a hybrid plan is a jigsaw puzzle of land rights and owners’ agendas, some known, others tightly guarded.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

This is a jigsaw puzzle we've been putting together for five years.

Read more on BBC