noun
Etymology
Origin of puzzler
Explanation
A puzzler is a confusing or tricky problem. The mystery of why you always lose your car keys can be described as a puzzler. You might be sure you'll ace your math test until you get to the final question, a complete puzzler that you can't figure out how to solve. Other kinds of puzzlers could be the complicated plot of a novel you're reading or what the secret ingredient is in your dad's brownie recipe. The noun puzzler has been around since the mid-1600s, from puzzle, "bewilder or confound."
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.
Then came this puzzler: “I have stopped Nuclear Wars from breaking out across the World between Pakistan and India, Iran and Israel, and Russia and Ukraine.”
From Slate • Feb. 6, 2026
It didn't cost them this time, but it remains a puzzler as to why this keeps happening.
From BBC • Mar. 8, 2025
The collapse of eighth-grade reading scores was a puzzler for L.A.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 29, 2025
Those compounds didn't react at all, a puzzler the researchers are still trying to understand.
From Science Daily • Feb. 12, 2024
A pastel persona is quick to restrain the perpetual puzzler before she can claw your eyes out, and another one escorts you away.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
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.
