- 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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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.
The puzzling thing about Saturday’s meltdown wasn’t simply that the No. 1 team in the nation lost to a .500 team that had dropped out of the Top 25 rankings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026
Speaking of parks, it’s inconsistent and puzzling that the museum’s beautiful park, which edges right up to the building, can be entered without having to also pass through security.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
And “One Man In” is a puzzling title: Mr. Craighead wasn’t a sole actor but was accompanied by paramilitary officers from Kenya and a crew of security personnel and civilians.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
The discovery is puzzling because, based on known mechanisms, this small stellar remnant should not be capable of producing the structure seen around it.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 25, 2026
This was doubly puzzling, as I did not think he read Arabic; nor, to my knowledge, did he have borrowing privileges at the Williams College Library.
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
