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.
Astronomers first proposed the companion's existence in 2024 as a possible explanation for a puzzling cycle in which Betelgeuse's brightness changes approximately every 2,100 days.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 4, 2026
It was puzzling at first to the ER staff, and unusual for everyone, but it was also a defining moment for Van Gorp.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026
The finding provides a potential explanation for an otherwise puzzling observation.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026
It is puzzling to me why Maupassant’s elder and mentor, Gustave Flaubert, is the object of so much cultish admiration while the protégé is comparatively neglected.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
He stopped and looked at me like he’s puzzling, then said, “I’m going to have to do some more contemplating over this. On the one hand this might be an act of conjuration.”
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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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.
