different between perplexity vs riddle

English

Etymology

perplex +? -ity, from Middle French perplexité or post-classical Latin perplexitas ‘entanglement’, from perplexus.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /p??pl?ks?ti/
• (US) IPA^(key): /p???pl?ks?di/

Noun

perplexity (countable and uncountable, plural perplexities)

1. The state or quality of being perplexed; puzzled or confused.
2. Something that perplexes.
   • 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (Canongate 2006), page 149:

     The Emperor, who was by then a focus of unresolvable perplexities, stood providing a strongly contrary appearance.

3. In information theory, a measurement of how well a probability distribution or model predicts a sample.

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???d?l/
• Rhymes: -?d?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English redel, redels, from Old English r?dels, r?delse (“counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle”), from Proto-West Germanic *r?disl? (“counsel, conjecture”). Analyzable as rede (“advice”) +? -le. Akin to Old English r?dan (“to read, advise, interpret”).

Noun

riddle (plural riddles)

1. A verbal puzzle, mystery, or other problem of an intellectual nature.

   Synonyms: enigma, conundrum, brain-teaser

   • Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost obliterated lines engraved there. ¶ "I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful. "What occult meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? I'm sure I don't want to read riddles in a strange gentleman's optics."

2. An ancient verbal, poetic, or literary form, in which, rather than a rhyme scheme, there are parallel opposing expressions with a hidden meaning.

Derived terms

• riddler

Related terms

• a riddle wrapped up in an enigma
• riddle stick

Translations

Verb

riddle (third-person singular simple present riddles, present participle riddling, simple past and past participle riddled)

1. To speak ambiguously or enigmatically.
2. (transitive) To solve, answer, or explicate a riddle or question.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English riddil, ridelle (“sieve”), from Old English hriddel (“sieve”), alteration of earlier hridder, hr?der, from Proto-Germanic *hr?dr?, *hr?dr? (“sieve”), from Proto-Germanic *hrid- (“to shake”), from Proto-Indo-European *krey-. Akin to German Reiter (“sieve”), Old Norse hreinn (“pure, clean”), Old High German hreini (“pure, clean”), Gothic ???????????????????????? (hrains, “clean, pure”). More at rinse.

Noun

riddle (plural riddles)

2. A sieve with coarse meshes, usually of wire, for separating coarser materials from finer, as chaff from grain, cinders from ashes, or gravel from sand.
3. A board with a row of pins, set zigzag, between which wire is drawn to straighten it.

Translations

Verb

riddle (third-person singular simple present riddles, present participle riddling, simple past and past participle riddled)

1. To put something through a riddle or sieve, to sieve, to sift.
2. To fill with holes like a riddle.

3. To fill or spread throughout; to pervade.

Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English riddel, ridel, redel, rudel, from Old French ridel ("a plaited stuff; curtain"; > Medieval Latin ridellus), from rider (“to wrinkle”), from Old High German r?dan (“to turn; wrap; twist; wrinkle”), from Proto-Germanic *wr?þan? (“to turn; wind”). More at writhe. Doublet of rideau.

Noun

riddle (plural riddles)

1. (obsolete) A curtain; bed-curtain
2. (religious) One of the pair of curtains enclosing an altar on the north and south

Etymology 4

From Middle English ridlen, from the noun (see above).

Verb

riddle (third-person singular simple present riddles, present participle riddling, simple past and past participle riddled)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To plait

Further reading

• riddle (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• riddle on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• dreidl, lidder