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/kənˈəndrəm/ Listen

noun

Conundrum n.

A kind of riddle based upon some fanciful or fantastic resemblance between things quite unlike; a puzzling question, of which the answer is or involves a pun. "Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint."

A question to which only a conjectural answer can be made. "Do you think life is long enough to let me speculate on conundrums like that?"

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Etymology of 'Conundrum'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Conundrum" Quotes from Famous Books

... you, my dear Lord, is—Will you disappoint them?" Lord Beaconsfield put his glass in his eye, fixed his gaze on Lord Odo, and then said, "There is much force in what you say. I will consider the point." And next day he opened the proceedings in English. Now the psychological conundrum is this—Did he swallow the flattery, and honestly believe that the object of Lord Odo's appeal was to secure the pleasure of hearing him speak English? Or did he see through the manoeuvre, and recognize a polite intimation that a French speech from him would throw ...

— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... its mother among the motley and multitudinous mass of sibilant saints at a sewing society which is discussing the last wedding and the next divorce. He "who admits only what he understands" would have to look on himself as a conundrum and then give the conundrum up. He would have the longest doubts and the shortest creed on record. Agnosticism is part of the smashed crockery of ...

— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... into languishment that seemed to make him absolutely infirm, "it is everything that shall restrain me. I am not strong. I shall become weak of the knee and tremble under the eye of Mees Boston. I shall precipitate myself to the geologian by the throat. Ask me another conundrum ...

— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... these travelling people put on paper? Let me put it in the form of a conundrum. Q. What is it that the travelling M.P. treasures up and the Anglo-Indian hastens to throw away? A. Erroneous, hazy, distorted first impressions. Before the eyes of the griffin, India steams up in poetical mists, illusive, fantastic, subjective, ideal, picturesque. ...

— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... Conundrum is not allowed:—Why is Hasty Pudding like the Prince? Because it comes attended by its sweet;—nor this variation to it, to wit: Because ...

— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

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