puzzle out
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Trying to puzzle out what he “really” meant, as opposed to what he actually said, will get you nowhere.
From Salon • Feb. 9, 2025
"It was a pleasure to puzzle out the findings of the study together by uniting the team's expertise in data analysis and cell biology," said Tobias Gerber, another of the study's lead authors.
From Science Daily • Nov. 29, 2024
But Maitlis says she spent years "trying to puzzle out" what the words meant.
From BBC • Sep. 9, 2024
Without information from a weather radar or other optical measurements, he says, it is challenging to puzzle out the small-scale processes within thunderstorms.
From National Geographic • Oct. 6, 2023
Took me a long time to puzzle out what that could mean—until one morning, while we were eating cereal, he told me that, sometimes, he thinks there isn’t such a thing as time.
From "King and the Dragonflies" by Kacen Callender
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.
