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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

conundrum.

A difficult question or riddle, especially one using a play on words in the answer.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/kəˈnʌn.dɹəm/Received-Pronunciation, US
  1. A difficult question or riddle, especially one using a play on words in the answer.

  2. A difficult choice or decision that must be made.

Where this word comes from

A word of unknown origin with several variants, gaining popularity for its burlesque imitation of scholastic Latin, as hocus-pocus or panjandrum. If there is more to its origin than a nonce coinage, Anatoly Liberman suggests the best theory is that connecting it with the Conimbricenses, 16th c. scholastic commentaries on Aristotle by the Jesuits of Coimbra which indulge heavily in arguments relying on multiple significations of words.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.