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enigma

noun

Simple meaning

Something or someone puzzling, mysterious or inexplicable.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihnigmuh

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪˈnɪɡmə

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Something or someone puzzling, mysterious or inexplicable.

  2. A riddle, or a difficult problem.

  3. Mysteriousness; obscurity; a lack of clarity.

  4. Riddles and puzzles, collectively.

  5. A style of literature characterized by obscurity and hints of transcendental meaning.

  6. A protein with three LIM domains (a conserved cysteine- and histidine-rich structure of two adjacent zinc fingers) at the C terminus that regulates protein phosphorylation.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Formality
Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Something or someone puzzling, mysterious or inexplicable.

Used this way, enigma is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

enigma machinegreat enigmanaval enigmaenigma codecomplete enigmainsoluble enigmacentral enigmametropolitan enigma

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • enigma canonnounCompound term

    A canon in which the entrances of successive parts were indicated by cryptic symbols and devices (popular in the 15th and 16th centuries).

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.