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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

dilemma.

A circumstance in which a choice must be made between two or more alternatives that seem equally undesirable.

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/daɪˈlɛmə/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɪˈlɛmə/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɑeˈlemə/Australia/dɪˈlemə/Australia
  1. A circumstance in which a choice must be made between two or more alternatives that seem equally undesirable.

  2. Any difficult circumstance or problem.

  3. A type of syllogism of the form "if A is true then B is true; if C is true then D is true; either A or C is true; therefore either B or D is true".

  4. Offering to an opponent a choice between two (equally unfavorable) alternatives.

    rhetoric
Where this word comes from

PIE word *dwóh₁ First attested 1523, from Late Latin dilemma, from Ancient Greek δίλημμα (dílēmma, “ambiguous proposition”), from δι- (di-, “having two of”) + λῆμμα (lêmma, “premise, proposition”), equivalent to di- + lemma.

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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.