The Origin of Puzzle Is Itself a Puzzle
A puzzle is a problem set for amusement. Etymologists have never established where the word came from.
A puzzle is a problem or device set to test ingenuity. Fittingly, its own origin is unsolved: the word appears in English around 1600 with no clear ancestor, and every proposed source has been rejected. It joins a small group of common English words — *dog*, *bad*, *banter*, *cuddle* — whose ancestry has never been traced.
- A problem set for amusement. *A crossword puzzle.*
- To perplex. *It puzzles me.*
- To think hard. *Puzzle over the clue.*
- Puzzling — perplexing. *A puzzling result.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | puzzle | A logic puzzle. |
| Plural | puzzles | Daily puzzles. |
| Verb | puzzle | Puzzle it out. |
| Adjective | puzzling | A puzzling gap. |
| Adjective | puzzled | A puzzled expression. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The word's origin is unknown.Which is appropriate.
- He puzzled over it for hours.Thought hard.
- The first crossword appeared in 1913.In a New York newspaper.
Kinds of puzzle
- Crossword — first published in 1913
- Cryptic crossword — a British speciality with clues in two halves
- Jigsaw — invented around 1760 as a teaching aid
- Sudoku — a number placement puzzle popularised in Japan
- Logic grid — deducing relationships from a set of constraints
Of unknown origin, first recorded around 1600. Several etymologies have been proposed and none accepted.
Where does the word come from?
Nobody knows. It appears around 1600 with no established ancestor, which makes it a puzzle in its own right.
What is a cryptic crossword clue?
One containing both a definition and a wordplay route to the same answer, so the solver can confirm it two ways.