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conundrum - 4 dictionary results

co⋅nun⋅drum

[kuh-nuhn-druhm]
–noun
1. a riddle, the answer to which involves a pun or play on words, as What is black and white and read all over? A newspaper.
2. anything that puzzles.

Origin:
1590–1600; pseudo-L word of obscure orig.
co·nun·drum   (kə-nŭn'drəm)   
n.  
  1. A riddle in which a fanciful question is answered by a pun.
  2. A paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma: "the conundrum, thus far unanswered, of achieving full employment without inflation" (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)

[Origin unknown.]

Conundrum

Co*nun"drum\, n. [Origin unknown.]

1. A kind of riddle based upon some fanciful or fantastic resemblance between things quite unlike; a puzzling question, of which the answer is or involves a pun.

Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint. --J. Philips.

2. A question to which only a conjectural answer can be made.

Do you think life is long enough to let me speculate on conundrums like that? --W. Black.

conundrum 
1596, Oxford University slang for "pedant," also "whim," etc., later (1790) "riddle, puzzle," also spelled quonundrum; the sort of ponderous pseudo-Latin word that was once the height of humor in learned circles.
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