quandary
Americannoun
-
quandaries
plural
noun
Synonym Usage
See predicament.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of quandary
First recorded in 1570–80; perhaps fancifully from Latin quand(ō) “when” + -āre infinitive suffix
Explanation
How to define the word quandary? Wow, this is quite a dilemma. What to do, what to do? Hmmm. Looks like this moment itself is a quandary: a tough situation that will be really hard to resolve. If you’re uncertain what to do because all of your options seem unpleasant, you’re probably in a quandary. Some voters find themselves in a quandary when they dislike all of the candidates. A more common quandary is when you plan two events at the same time and can’t decide which one to attend. Some synonyms are predicament, dilemma, plight, and pickle — and choosing which word to use is a quandary in itself.
Vocabulary lists containing quandary
In a Pickle: Words for When You're in Trouble
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300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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Grade 10, List 2
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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.
See Examples For:
That leaves Mauricio Pochettino, coach of the national team, in a bit of a quandary heading into the new four-year World Cup cycle.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
Unlike Saturday, a review could not save Root, and England have a real quandary over how to counter-act Henry and New Zealand gloveman Tom Blundell.
From BBC ● Jun. 21, 2026
However, he acknowledged YouTube is a particular quandary: its shifting sea of content makes real-time filtering nearly impossible, for Google or school districts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 29, 2026
OpenAI has been trying to build up its Claude Code competitor, Codex, and sees a window of opportunity in Anthropic’s quandary.
From Slate ● Apr. 14, 2026
Yet we sang in church “Tata Nzolo”! Which means Father in Heaven or Father of Fish Bait depending on just how you sing it, and that pretty well summed up my quandary.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
They will find themselves in the same stock-picking and market-timing quandaries they had initially set out to avoid—with potentially little ultimate benefit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026
You wrote in from inboxes and DMs and social feeds with questions about everything from drink quandaries to annoying cousins.
From Salon ● Nov. 25, 2025
Osit wants us to leave the theater chewing over these quandaries, and he’s even willing to let us wonder whether his own movie is a net-positive on the world.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2025
Her sparked some of my first reflections about whether tech innovation is inherently good or bad for society, and helped validate my early moral quandaries and panic at the time.
From Slate ● Apr. 11, 2025
For Howard, they would present some of the most difficult quandaries of his public life.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
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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.
