| / English Dictionary |
PUZZLING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lacking clarity of meaning; causing confusion or perplexity
Example:
a puzzling statement
Synonyms:
confusing; perplexing; puzzling
Classified under:
Similar:
unclear (not clear to the mind)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Not clear to the understanding
Example:
prophetic texts so enigmatic that their meaning has been disputed for centuries
Synonyms:
enigmatic; enigmatical; puzzling
Classified under:
Similar:
incomprehensible; uncomprehensible (difficult to understand)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb puzzle
Context examples:
A rotation rate of 90 hours is much slower than what is predicted for HD 80606b, puzzling astronomers, and adding to the enduring mystique of hot Jupiters.
(Investigating the Mystery of Migrating 'Hot Jupiters', NASA)
According to the analysis, 'Oumuamua's motion through our solar system is puzzling, appearing to accelerate along its trajectory — a typical feature of comets — but showing no evidence of the gaseous emissions that typically create this acceleration.
('Oumuamua interstellar object was not an alien spacecraft, National Science Foundation)
What they found was puzzling.
(At Saturn, One of These Rings is not like the Others, NASA)
What's puzzling the researchers is that despite the magnitudes of these potentials at Jupiter, they are observed only sometimes and are not the source of the most intense auroras, as they are at Earth.
(Jupiter's Auroras Present a Powerful Mystery, NASA)
However, RSL remain puzzling.
(Recurring Martian Streaks: Flowing Sand, Not Water?, NASA)
To hear them talking so much of Captain Wentworth, repeating his name so often, puzzling over past years, and at last ascertaining that it might, that it probably would, turn out to be the very same Captain Wentworth whom they recollected meeting, once or twice, after their coming back from Clifton—a very fine young man—but they could not say whether it was seven or eight years ago, was a new sort of trial to Anne's nerves.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
That’s the puzzling part.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
To this day, when I look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present themselves again before me as they used to do.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
And while scientists are still puzzling over the data, two papers recently shed new light on a phenomenon observed within the storm: dust towers, or concentrated clouds of dust that warm in sunlight and rise high into the air.
(Global Storms on Mars Launch Dust Towers Into the Sky, NASA)
The betting was still steadily in favour of Wilson, for he had a number of bye-battles to set against this single victory of Jim’s, and it was thought by connoisseurs who had seen him spar that the singular defensive tactics which had given him his nickname would prove very puzzling to a raw antagonist.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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