- present participle of puzzle.
puzzling
Americanadjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of puzzling
Explanation
Something that's puzzling is confusing, or hard to understand. It might seem puzzling to you that your best friend claims to hate doughnuts. People sometimes act in puzzling ways, making decisions that you can't comprehend. You might also come across particularly puzzling questions on a test or quiz — these are the hard ones, taking a long time to figure out and requiring a lot of thought. Puzzling comes from the verb puzzle, whose origin is a bit of a puzzle itself. Some experts guess that it comes from pose, formed the way nuzzle is from nose.
Vocabulary lists containing puzzling
Strange
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Strange
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Strange
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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.
For much of the early 20th century, quantum mechanics was one of the most puzzling ideas in science.
From Science Daily • Jul. 5, 2026
Pessimism about the economy persists across classes, puzzling economists despite healthy hiring and consumer-spending metrics.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 19, 2026
A competing interpretation has emerged of the preliminary report's most puzzling detail: the brief movement of both fuel-control switches to "cutoff" shortly after take-off.
From BBC • Jun. 15, 2026
But as more analysts bang the drum, this puzzling quantum play might finally start making sense.
From Barron's • Jun. 15, 2026
This proved impossible, as he couldn’t stop puzzling over what Malfoy was doing that needed lookouts.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
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.
