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Puzzle   /pˈəzəl/   Listen
Puzzle

noun
1.
A particularly baffling problem that is said to have a correct solution.  Synonyms: mystifier, puzzler, teaser.  "That's a real puzzler"
2.
A game that tests your ingenuity.



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"Puzzle" Quotes from Famous Books



... faced each other across the chasm which divided their lives. To the son the shock was scarcely less violent than to the father. The Seder, which the day's unwonted excitement had clean swept out of his mind, recurred to him in a flash, and by the light of it he understood the puzzle of his father's appearance. The thought of explaining rushed up only to be dismissed. The door of the restaurant had not yet ceased swinging behind him—there was too much to explain. He felt that all was over between him and his father. It was unpleasant, terrible even, for it meant ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... was utterly drab, wandered from room to room doing nothing. She could not settle to sew, read, paint, write letters, or any normal employment, and had not even the patience to try to put together a jig-saw puzzle. She missed Wendy and her other chums amongst the intermediates, and was almost tempted to wish herself back at school. Her piquant little face with this new triste aspect was a sorry spectacle, and Mrs. ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... has been able to understand the mystery of a looking-glass. They spend many hours of patient investigation before a mirror in their master's room, but all to no purpose, for the puzzle seems to remain as great as ever. They usually walk directly up to it, and betray great surprise when they find two other rooks advancing to meet them. For a while they remain silent and motionless, looking at ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... not ask through idle curiosity to know the number of the Angels; nor for the solution of a logical puzzle, nor for that of a question in metaphysics, or of a problem ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri

... puzzle, and I answer, yes! The finite can contain the Infinite, if you are talking about two hearts that love, one of them God's and one of them mine. We have got to keep very clear and distinct before our minds the broad, firm line of demarcation between ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... He puzzled them, to be sure, for they could not fathom the reason for his ever-bubbling gladness, but they strove to catch its secret, and, striving, they made friends with him. O'Reilly did not puzzle their daughters nearly so much: more than one aristocratic senorita felt sure that she quite understood the tall, blond stranger with the laughing eyes, or could understand him if he gave her half a chance, and so, as had been the case with other O'Reillys in other lands, Johnnie's exile ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... her, a steady flame of protest against Billy and all that Billy had done. Her throat was parched, a dull ache never ceased in her breast, and she was oppressed by a feeling of goneness. WHY, WHY?—And from the puzzle of the world ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... Territorial Legislature has no constitutional right to exclude slavery. And I have argued and said that for men who did, intend that the people of the Territory should have the right to exclude slavery absolutely and unconditionally, the voting down of Chase's amendment is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle, a riddle. But I have said, that with men who did look forward to such a decision, or who had it in contemplation that such a decision of the Supreme Court would or might be made, the voting down of that amendment would be perfectly rational and intelligible. It would keep Congress from coming ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... want me at all," said she, seating herself. "I only puzzle them, and oblige them to make civil speeches. Mr. Edmund Bertram, as you do not act yourself, you will be a disinterested adviser; and, therefore, I apply to you. What shall we do for an Anhalt? Is it practicable for any of the others to double it? What ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... very hard young lady to please, her father said, sometimes playfully, sometimes sternly. Felicia was nineteen, with a tropical beauty somewhat like her cousin, Rachel Winslow, with warm, generous impulses just waking into Christian feeling, capable of all sorts of expression, a puzzle to her father, a source of irritation to her mother and with a great unsurveyed territory of thought and action in herself, of which she was more than dimly conscious. There was that in Felicia that would easily endure any condition in life if only the liberty ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon

... that are not only picture books but play books. Beautifully printed in four colors. Books that children can cut out, paint or puzzle over. More entertaining than the ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... conceitedness; furthermore, she was a person of selfish instincts, but without the usual cruel impulses. There was little if any sign of true refinement in the features, and yet, there was a strange strength of purpose that puzzled him. As her story progressed, he solved the puzzle. She had the strength to carry out a purpose that might further her own personal interests; but not the will to endure sacrifice for the sake of another. Her sister was larger and possessed a reserve that might have been ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... "That's the puzzle! I do not know. I never heard of any such person in my life—not that I remember. Evidently, though, he knows enough about me to know that I own that sheep ranch, and to think that I ought to go out there and see it. I do not understand it at all. What do you ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... made in a good many small pieces," explained the kangaroo; "and whenever any stranger comes near them they have a habit of falling apart and scattering themselves around. That's when they get so dreadfully mixed, and it's a hard puzzle ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... rather abashed, dropped into the cold green tub, splashed, rubbed down, dressed, and sat down to breakfast. As he ate his waffles, though, out of the blue breakfast set which Dolly's charming, puzzle-browed economy had managed to extort from the recalcitrant family budget, his usual glowing loquacity of after-the-bath was lacking. His eyes wandered furtively about the little encumbered room; thoughts, visibly, rolled within his head which did not find his lips. And when he bade ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... American literature is a special variety that must not be too quickly identified with the literary product that bears the same name in more static civilizations. It is nearly always clever. Witness our short stories, which even when calculated not to puzzle the least intelligence nor to transcend the most modest limitations of taste, must be carefully constructed and told with facility or they will never see the light. And this literature is nearly always true to the superficies of life, to which, indeed, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... worthy of such a sweet bride. In the morning she'd gossip with William, and then The noon will be spent with young Harry, The evening with Tom; so, amongst all the men, She never could tell which to marry. Heigho! I am afraid Too many lovers will puzzle ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... my hand's in, let me tell you of a third matrimonial proposition, which gives me more puzzle and dislike a great deal. And that is, Mr. Adams has, with great reluctance, and after abundance of bashful apologies, asked me, if I have any objection to his making his addresses to Polly Barlow? which, however, he told me, he had not mentioned to her, nor to any body living, because ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... appellation, to get at the fact; but since even gravestones have learned to use the names belonging to childhood and infancy in their solemn record, the generation which docks its Christian names in such an un-Christian way will bequeath whole churchyards full of riddles to posterity. How it will puzzle and distress the historians and antiquarians of a coming generation to settle what was the real name of Dan and Bert and Billy, which last is legible on a white marble slab, raised in memory of a grown person, in a certain burial-ground in a town in ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... "Managed to get up quickly you did the day?" Gwen answered in the manner the questions were asked, seriously or jestingly. She considered these sayings, and the cause of her uneasiness was not a puzzle to her; and she got to despise the man whom she had married, and whose skin was like parched leather, and ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans

... act of creation. But we can say that there is a congruity in such a miracle, with the moral purpose of all the world, of which we are a part, that removes all difficulty in believing it. Science, as such, cannot admit a miracle, and can only say, 'Here is a puzzle yet unsolved.' Nor can the most religious scientific man be blamed as undutiful to religion if he persists in endeavouring to solve the puzzle. But he has no right to insist beforehand that the ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter

... Australia at different times, and altered to some extent the character and aspect of its original native vegetation. Nevertheless, even in the matter of its plants and trees, Australia must still be considered a very old-fashioned and stick-in-the-mud continent. The strange puzzle-monkeys, the quaint-jointed casuarinas (like horsetails grown into big willows), and the park-like forests of blue gum-trees, with their smooth stems robbed of their outer bark, impart a marvellously antiquated and unfamiliar ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... have thought should be naturally concentrated on her adopted daughter, her sister's orphan child? In conjectures such as these, I completely lost myself. Let me hear what your ingenuity can make of the puzzle; and let me return to Mr. Farnaby's dinner, waiting on ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... an admirable channel, he had cut it short for fear young Pillin might drink the lot or get wind of the rat. And when his guests were gone, and his family had retired, he stood staring into the fire, putting together the pieces of the puzzle. Five or six thousand pounds—six would be ten per cent. on sixty! Exactly! Scrivens—young Pillin had said! But Crow & Donkin, not Scriven & Coles, were old Heythorp's solicitors. What could that mean, save that the old man wanted to cover the tracks of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Oliver, by the side of his friend Wraysford, was sitting. Wraysford's face was beaming as he clapped his friend on the back. Oliver looked as unconcerned and indifferent as ever. The fellow was a puzzle, certainly. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... is where the priest had them; for they knew that as well as his Reverence himself—so they were in a puzzle again. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... at the present time, about 600,000 aliens are coming to America yearly. What is the result? I was invited to meet a distinguished German visiting in New York last month, and at the dinner a young lady who sat by my side said to me, "I wish I could puzzle him." "Why?" I asked, in amazement. "Oh," was her reply, "he looks so cram full of knowledge; I would like to take him down." "Ah," I said. "Ask him which is the third largest German city in the world. It is New York; he will never guess it." She did so, and I assure you he was "puzzled," ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... LET school-masters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning; Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives 'genus' a better discerning. Let them brag of their heathenish gods, 5 Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians: Their Quis, and their Quaes, and their Quods, They're all but a parcel of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... to understand in you," she replied. "You are a puzzle to me often. You seem so frank, and yet one knows so little about you after all. For instance," Lucia went on, "who would imagine that ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... cavil at received axioms has beset me through life. No sooner does a truth present itself than I want to see it on its other side. If I hear the Devil spoken ill of, I puzzle myself to find what can be said in his favor. The man who thus halts between conflicting opinions, solicitous to give both their due, and to see the truth, pure and simple and entire, may miss laying hold of great convictions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... intended to puzzle their pursuers, if they were pursued. Roland had heard the parting call of the leader: "To-morrow night, you know where!" He had no doubt, therefore, that whichever trail he followed, whether up ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... Flying Machine Introductory Chapter by Octave Chanute, C. E. II. Theory Development and Use Origin of the Aeroplane—Developments by Chanute and the Wrights—Practical Uses and Limits. III. Mechanical Bird Action What the Motor Does—Puzzle in Bird Soaring. IV. Various Forms of Flying Machines Helicopters, Ornithopters and Aeroplanes— Monoplanes, Biplanes and Triplanes. V. Constructing a Gliding Machine Plans and Materials Required—Estimate of Cost— Sizes and Preparation of Various Parts—Putting the Parts Together VI. Learning ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... pattern. One had guessed him a martinet until his amiable opinions and easy-going personality were manifested. The old man was not vain; he knew that a world very different from his own extended round about him. But he was puzzle-headed, and had never been shaken from his life-long complacency by circumstances. He had been disappointed in love as a young man, and only married late in life. He had no son, and was a widower—facts that, to ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... newsboys, little coz, and they wouldn't be flattered by our comparison. They are yelling what, in United States, would be 'extra!' I'll get a paper and see if I can puzzle out some of the French," and he strolled down to intercept one of the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... fell upon me, my wife laughed, and declared that our affairs ran so crooked, she didn't believe I could tell a straight story. But Fanny said that would make it seem more like a book; the puzzle to her was what I should call myself, seeing that I was neither one thing nor another. It was finally agreed, however, that, as I had taught school one winter, and that an important one, I should call ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... able to lend myself to the idea of mere gain, I could formerly have sent such things anonymously into the world, with the aid of Lenz and others—nay, I could still, as would astonish people not a little, and make them puzzle their brains to find out the author; but after all, they would be but ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... in No. 23 of YOUNG PEOPLE is solved by relieving the Bossy of her disfiguring black patches, and arranging them as in Fig. 1. Fig. 2 shows the rustic group that the artist had in his mind when he invented the puzzle. The only correct solution to this puzzle that we have received was sent ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... that undoubted marriage brings me to the question of sex. There is, of course, not the slightest doubt about it. Mrs. Ventris was a fairy wife. Mrs. Ventris was a puzzle to me for a good many years—in fact until Despoina explained to me many things. For Mrs. Ventris had a permanent human shape, and spoke as freely as you or I. I thought at one time that she might be the offspring of a mixed marriage, like Elsie Marks (whose mother, by the ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... him about Richard Wade's remarks, and together they tried to puzzle out the theory ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch

... tricks well," Sir Ralph said, good-temperedly, "and, in truth, your quick returns puzzle me greatly, and I admit that were we both unprotected I should have no chance with you, but let us see what you could do were we fighting in earnest," and he took down a couple of suits of complete body armour ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... very much, and my sister is quite proud of them. For the first time in my life I congratulated myself upon the shortness and meanness of my name. Had it been Schwartzenberg or Esterhazy it would have put you to some puzzle." ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Indians for many years they frequently asked questions which would puzzle, the most profound philosopher to answer. For instance, they inquired, "Who made the world ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston

... when the mother came up the lake to the shoal with her two little ones, there was a surprise awaiting them. For half an hour I had been watching from the point to anticipate their coming. There were some things that puzzled me, and that puzzle me still, in Ismaques' fishing. If he caught his fish in his mouth, after the methods of loon and otter, I could understand it better. But to catch a fish—whose dart is like lightning—under the water with his feet, when, after his plunge, he can ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... mysteries of this natural function. We know what would occur. A considerable proportion of the community, more especially the more youthful members, possessed by an instinctive and legitimate curiosity, would concentrate their thoughts on the subject. They would have so many problems to puzzle over: How often ought I to eat? What ought I to eat? Is it wrong to eat fruit, which I like? Ought I to eat grass, which I don't like? Instinct notwithstanding, we may be quite sure that only a small minority would succeed ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... their union. The real character of the husband appears early; his fond love soon dwindles to painful neglect: how truly does the writer observe, "the rapidity with which love may glide from the heart of man is a moral phenomenon for which it would puzzle philosophers to account. The brief space of a few months not unfrequently converts the devoted into the unkind, or to a delicate mind still worse—the neglectful husband." The wayward Huntley breaks off church-going; he refuses Grace ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various

... with mental analysis; his effort to untangle his ideas in this case merely added to his puzzlement; it was like one of those patent trick things which he had picked up in idle moments, allowing the puzzle to bedevil attention and time, intriguing his interest, to his disgust. He had felt particularly lonely and helpless when he came away from Comas headquarters; instinctively he was seeking friendly companionship—opening ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... seems to have been a sad puzzle to the hunters, who hardly knew how to come at so valuable a piece of game. Some described the horn as movable at the will of the animal, a kind of small sword, in short, with which no hunter who was not exceedingly cunning in fence ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... need to tell that to any one who has ever heard from you," remarked Blue Bonnet. "The one letter I had from you in New York took me an hour to puzzle out,—it began in the middle and ended at the top of the first page, and there were six 'ands' and four 'ifs' ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... about the Cardinal Archbishop of CRANBERRY, instead of CHAMBERY. I got a dispatch from, him quoting the Virago of Paris—meaning the Figaro, of course. And then that Schema; a Sphinx could not have made it more of a puzzle, whether he meant that the bishops voted that the Pope should be deified, or defied, or that the de fide ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various

... Chinese Literature, Sec.Sec. Philosophy) an attempt was made by later writers to weave a scheme of thought which should serve to satisfy the cravings of mortals for some definite solution of the puzzle of life. Lao Tz[)u] himself had enunciated a criterion which he called Tao, or the Way, from which is derived the word Taoism; and in his usual paradoxical style he had asserted that the secret of this Way, which was at the beginning apparently nothing more than a line of right conduct, could ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... all night, Strake," said Syd, "and it was as great a puzzle to me. I heard the gurgling of water that day when Mr Dallas was hurt, and thought it must be the sea coming in through some crack, and I never thought of it again till I felt that I was dying. Then it came like ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... kind long letter. It brought me back to the green before the house at Freestone, and the old schoolroom in it. I have always felt within myself that if ever I did go again to Freestone, I should puzzle myself and every one else by bringing back old associations among existing things: I should have felt awkward. The place remains quite whole in my mind: Anne Allen's damask cheek forming part of the colouring therein. I remember a little well somewhere in the ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... way some episodes of the war as I observed them, and gained first-hand knowledge of them in their daily traffic. I have not painted the picture blacker than it was, nor selected gruesome morsels and joined them together to make a jig-saw puzzle for ghoulish delight. Unlike Henri Barbusse, who, in his dreadful book Le Feu, gave the unrelieved blackness of this human drama, I have here and in other books shown the light as well as the shade in which ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... intention in the world, saddled Pard, and wondered what there was about so simple a process that need puzzle any one. When she had tightened the cinch and looped up the latigo, and explained to Muriel just what she was doing, she immediately unsaddled him and laid the saddle down upon its side, with the blanket folded once on top, and ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... well advanced before I had an opportunity of speaking to Natalie. When it came, I did not stop to puzzle over ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... overtook them, just when they were vainly trying to puzzle out the meaning of a strange booming roar, which sounded not ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... point and Ras Za'farnah, higher up, the wind seems to split: a strong southerly gale will be blowing, whilst a norther of equal pressure prevails at the Gulf-head, and vice vers. Suez, indeed, appears to be, in more ways than one, a hydrographical puzzle. When it is low water in and near the harbour, the flow is high between the Straits of Jobal and the Daedalus Light; and the ebb tide runs out about two points across the narrows, whilst the flood runs in on a line parallel with it. Finally, when ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... suppose that to puzzle and astonish him still more, I took a chance drop of water out of any standing pool, and showed him through a magnifying-glass, in that single drop of water, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of living creatures ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley

... however, the attentive collector is rewarded by finding that a coherent whole is growing up in his or her mind out of the shreds and patches heard here and there, and it is delight indeed when your own dim suspicion that this part of the puzzle fits into that is confirmed by finding the two incidents preserved side by side in the mouth of some perfectly unconscious witness. Some of the tales in this volume have thus been a year or more on the stocks before ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... very dull here with all of us grown-up people, dears, so run away now. Therese," she added with a smile to her granddaughter who had risen obediently, "there is a splendid new puzzle in the library; you ought ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... political ambition. He was perhaps more desirous of raising the fallen fortunes of his house than of securing the independence of his country. Even at that early age, however, his mind was not easy to read, and his character was somewhat of a puzzle to those who studied it. "I see him much discontented with the States," said Leicester; "he hath a sullen deep wit. The young gentleman is yet to be won only to her Majesty, I perceive, of his own inclination. The house is marvellous poor and little ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... friends? and why do their friendships last very often but a short time? or, again, how is it they ever endure a long time? are questions which people who have forgotten their own early friendships, or, perhaps, never gave much thought to them, puzzle over in vain. And they may have puzzled you too, my thoughtful girl-readers, who want the ideal friend you have read of or dreamed of in day-dreams, but neither possess nor know ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various

... for a long time afterwards, until they became something like the puzzle: Which was created first, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... proved that even in this desolate, God-forsaken part of the Landes there were human habitations to be found. Stalking along with giant strides on the highest part of some rising ground not very far off was a grotesque figure, clearly defined against the bright eastern sky, which would have been a puzzle to a stranger, but was a familiar sight to de Sigognac—a shepherd mounted on his high stilts, such as are to be met with everywhere ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... of that boy of Dalhem is perplexing. Whether it was the spirit of the child that returned into his body to animate it anew, or the demon who replaced his soul, the puzzle appears to me the same; in all this circumstance we behold only the work of the evil spirit. God does not seem to have had any share in it. Now, if the demon can take the place of a spirit in a body newly dead, or if he can make the soul by which it ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... it poured out everything there was in his seething brain. He told of the scheme of Martin Leland and Sledge Hume, for Garth Conway had dropped an incautious word and the shrewd brain of Ettinger had worked out the puzzle. He told how the three men were trying to do this very thing, how they had planned on getting the water themselves, how Martin Leland had tied up thousands in options and purchases, how Ettinger had been one too many for them and had ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... Plain was certainly a puzzle to us. Why were we (p. 033) kept there? When were we going to leave? Were we not wanted in France? These were the questions we asked one another. I met an Imperial officer one day, who had just ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... "Well, you're a puzzle!" he said. She saw him leap into the saddle, and she ran to the lamp, blew out the flame, and returned to the open door, in which she stood for a long time, listening to rapid hoof beats that gradually ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... a loose triangle that is cut with canyons and tumbled with mountains, and that triangle was the chosen stamping ground of Jerry Strann. Jerry was not born in the region of the Three B's and why it should have been chosen specially by him was matter which the inhabitants could not puzzle out; but they felt that for their sins the Lord had probably put his wrath among them in the ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... table, handed him the timetable, a diabolical labyrinth of incomprehensible figures and words specially compiled by railroad managers to puzzle and befog the traveling public. But Brockton, from long practice, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... steady, even pull at regular tasks, especially in routine work, at which American children usually rebel. In fact, they prefer routine work to variety, and grow discouraged quickly when they have to puzzle out things for themselves. They will faithfully memorize pages and pages of matter which they do not understand, a task at which our nervous American children would completely fail. They are exceedingly sensitive to criticism, and respond quickly to praise. Unfortunately ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... he, too, seemed to consider it necessary to warn me that the skipper is a somewhat peculiar man. Naturally, after such a warning, I have been keeping my eyes and ears open, and I confess that I find the man something of a puzzle. Carter quite led me to anticipate the possibility that Williams might order us down the side into our boats again, instead of which, so far as words, and even deeds, are concerned, I have not the least fault to find. But all the time that he was saying kind things to me this morning, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... that why, as a woman does think at times for long years afterwards, trying to solve the psychological puzzle of her foolish youth! Hollenby was certainly the abler man, as well as the more brilliant prospect. And there were others who had loved her, and whom even as a girl she had wit enough to value.... A girl's choice, when her heart speaks, as the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... or passed other family groups, stiffly armoured for the weekly penance to a bewildering puzzle of mortality. Ceremonious greetings were exchanged with these. The day was bright and the world all fair, but there could be no levity, no social small talk, while this grim business was on. They reached the white house of worship, impressive under its heaven-pointing steeple, and passed ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... present quite an interesting pitching problem, the puzzle being to find out which of the above pitchers did the best work in the box in every respect, not only in pitching, but by his batting, fielding and base running. In percentage of victories pitched ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick

... his uncle, looking him over from head to foot, for Bob with his ideas was getting to be more and more of a puzzle to him every day as he upset the ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... Mr. Dunster concluded, "you wish those who sent me to believe that my message has been delivered. Yet there I must confess that you puzzle me. What I cannot see is, to put it bluntly, where you come in. Any one of the countries represented at this little conference would only be the gainers by the miscarriage of my message, which is, without doubt, so far as they are concerned, ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... There were her initials, D.M.B., entwined in Old English letters on the outside. It was the locket Hinpoha had lost on the train coming to Nyoda's. How came it in the possession of this strange aviator? It was a puzzle Sahwah could not solve. She was still lost in wonder over it when she heard footsteps and looked around to see Oh-Pshaw appear between the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... "We often puzzle ourselves about the rights and wrongs of Onkel Peter's death," concluded the simple man; "but this will always be clear to us, that three foreign ladies visiting the house out of respect to his memory ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... Parisienne. Oh! she's a riddle of course. I don't pretend to spell every letter of her. The returning of my presents is odd. No, I maintain that she is a coward acting under domination, and there's no other way of explaining the puzzle. I was out of sight, they bullied her, and she yielded—bewilderingly, past comprehension it seems—cat!—until you remember what she's made of: she's a reed. Now I reappear armed with powers to give her a free course, and she, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of violet moonlight, trying to fit together all the pieces of the puzzle, and asked half aloud, "What ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... horror upon the recital of its aims and purposes—and, indeed, the whole organization, as formidable as it was in numbers, was soon in the most terrible condition, and died in great agony. The complications of the disease of which the order came to its death, would puzzle the most profound pathologist. It might, perhaps, be set down as a disease of the heart, induced by corrupt morals, with the following complications: Softening of the brain from the study of State sovereignty; extreme nervous debility from the reproach of a guilty conscience; injury to ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... the tale there comes a moment of puzzled hesitation. One way of approach is set beside another for choice, and a third contrived for better choice. Still the puzzle persists, all because the one precisely right way might seem—shall we say intense, high keyed, clamorous? Yet if one way is the only right way, why pause? Courage! Slightly dazed, though certain, let us be on, into the shrill thick of it. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... Connaught, and which involved the ticklish task of estimating probable traffic receipts and working expenses—a task for which the gift of prophecy almost is needed. To determine, in this uncertain world, the future of a railway in embryo might puzzle the wisest; but, with the confidence of the expert, I faced the problem and, I hope, arrived at conclusions which were at least within ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow

... looked from the figure to Manuel, and the stranger deliberated the question (which later was to puzzle so many people) if any human being could be as simple as Manuel appeared. Manuel at twenty was not yet the burly giant he became. But already he was a gigantic and florid person, so tall that the heads of few men reached to his shoulder; a person of handsome exterior, high featured ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... stained glass and an organ are sinful. I grant you that there is a certain fairness in trying the blackguard and the religionist by different standards. Where the pretension is higher, the test may justly be more severe. But I say it is unfair to puzzle out with diligence the one or two good things in the character of a reckless scamp, and to refuse moderate attention to the many good points about a weak, narrow-minded, and uncharitable good person. I ask for charity in the estimating ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... place against the tree. His own rifle was undisturbed. Boston concluded that Doctor Tom had gone for water or was off on some incomprehensible Indian freak, the reason of which was not worth a white man's time to puzzle out, rolled up in his blanket again and became oblivious to the ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... I have to thank for being more a son of the Revolution than of the Crusaders was a singular character who was long a puzzle to us. He was an elderly man, whose mode of life, ideas, and habits were in striking contrast with those of the country at large. I used to see him every day, with his threadbare cloak, going to buy a pennyworth of milk which the girl who sold ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... baffled by the puzzle that her search for ammunition had revealed. She stood gazing at the faded photograph for a time and then bethought herself of the ammunition for which she had come. Turning again to the box she rummaged to the bottom and there in a corner she came upon a little box of cartridges. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... no confidences, and received none; she could only puzzle over the problem. Why did Miriam behave with so strange a coldness? Her new way of regarding life ought to have resulted in her laying aside that austerity. Mrs. Lessingham hinted an opinion that the change did not go very deep; ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... at the quill or the shoes, but the eyes, eyes which seemed sorrowing with all the love sorrows of the centuries. "Young woman," he said uncertainly, "you puzzle me." ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... knew that he could not attempt to influence her with a good grace, or any force of argument. He resolved, therefore, to set his attorney to work, who, as he understood all the quirks and intricacy of the law, might be able to puzzle her into compliance. This gentleman, however, who possessed at once a rapacious heart and a stupid head, might have fleeced half the country had the one been upon a par with the other. He was, besides, in his own estimation, a lady-killer, and knew not how these interviews with the fair Cooleen ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... it?" he asked, when Father Roland dropped back to his side, smiling and breathing deeply. "It sounds like a Chinese puzzle, and ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... find out how much it means," she added. "I reckon every girl is a kind of a puzzle and some are very easy and some would give ye ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... the offspring of other stories which were sun-myths; they are stories which conform to the sun-myth type after the manner above illustrated in the paper on Light and Darkness. [Hence there is nothing unintelligible in the inconsistency—which seems to puzzle Max Muller (Science of Language, 6th ed. Vol. II. p. 516, note 20)—of investing Paris with many of the characteristics of the children of light. Supposing, as we must, that the primitive sense of the Iliad-myth had as entirely ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... can't be pride or prejudice. You can't wound or injure a man you have never seen. As far as I know, Strachey has not been got at by any of my personal enemies. He hates Kruger and his party even more than he does me. It's a most disagreeable and distracting puzzle. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... this or that, lightly or laughingly, as a child thinks, or as we think in a morning doze; we can make puns or puzzle out acrostics, and trifle in a thousand ways with words and rhymes; but when it comes to honest work, when we come to gather ourselves together for an effort, we may sound the trumpet as long and loud as we please; the great barons of the mind will not rally to the standard, but sit, each one ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and St. Clement's Danes in that place." I gave up theorizing until I could see the registers of St. Clement's Danes, and from various causes three years passed before I had an opportunity of clearing up the puzzle. These registers prove that in London, as in Stratford-on-Avon, I had been confused by double entries, and that there was another John Shakespeare. The St. Martin's John lost his wife Dorothy in 1608; the St. Clement's John married his wife Mary in 1605. "3rd Feb. 1604-5, Johne Shakspear ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes

... sickness in childhood ought to have a certain value not to be classed under any fitness or unfitness of natural selection; and especially scarlet fever affected boys seriously, both physically and in character, though they might through life puzzle themselves to decide whether it had fitted or unfitted them for success; but this fever of Henry Adams took greater and greater importance in his eyes, from the point of view of education, the longer he lived. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... out of her twinkling eyes and saw a gentleman promenading on the quarter-deck before her, whom she must have thought she had somewhere seen before, but that his gigantic black mustache was a puzzle, and the little imperial on his chin was a baffling difficulty. Mr. Lovibond puffed the smoke from a colossal cigar, and wondered if the world held two pair of eyes like those big black ones which glanced up at him sometimes from a deck stool, a puffy ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine

... shilling should be spent. I've fought for my country and my country has done darned little for me. I'll go to the Rooshians, so help me! I could show them how to cross the Himalayas so that it would puzzle either Afghans or British to stop 'em. What's that secret worth in ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the persistent and systematic effort made to destroy every scrap of record relating to the man—the sole gleam of shame evidenced in the impolitic, idiotic, and pusillanimous treatment of him—and the whole question becomes such a puzzle that it may just as well be left in darkness, with a throb of pity for the unfortunate victim caught in such a maelstrom of ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... brooded over this, too. Here he was defending the outlaw chief, and rejoicing at his own downfall. There seemed to be no end to the contradictions in this man. She was to run across another tangled thread of the puzzle a few ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... end of the kingdom period, there will come another crisis. It is spoken of by John in his Revelation vision[6] as a loosing of Satan, and a renewal of his activity among men. That used to puzzle me a good bit. I wondered why, when that foul fiend had once been securely fastened up, he should be loosed again. But I'm satisfied that the reason is that at the end of the Kingdom time there is to be full opportunity for those who are not ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... was naturally closely studied. The combined intelligence of the outfit was trained upon him, for some time without result. He was the knottiest puzzle that ever hit Cross Canon. At first he was suspected of religious scruples and nicknamed "Circuit Rider." But presently it became apparent that he owned ability and will to curse a fighting outlaw bronco till the burning desert air felt chill, and it became plain he feared God ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... Bamboo asked a question, "just the custom." The boy had tried to imagine it all for himself, but had never been quite sure that he was right, and now, joy of all joys, he was about to enter the very turtle-room itself. Surely, once inside, he could find some answer to this puzzle of his childhood. ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... that the Bible story of creation was the work of unscientific men of strong imagination into a far-fetched and unsatisfactory puzzle of symbol and allegory? It would be just as easy and just as reasonable to take the Morte d'Arthur and try to prove that it contained a veiled revelation of God's ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... Mr. Rugge, coming here, as he and his troop had done at fair-time ever sin' I can mind of, brought with him the man you have seen to-night, William Waife; I calls him Gentleman Waife. However that man fell into sick straits, how he came to join sich a caravan, would puzzle most heads. It puzzles Joe Spruce, uncommon; ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... destruction? We ought to imagine the whole of Europe with St. Petersburg, Paris, and London transformed into a vast rubbish-heap. How could we expect the kindlers of such a fire to retain any consciousness after so vast a devastation? He used to puzzle any who professed their readiness for self-sacrifice by telling them it was not the so- called tyrants who were so obnoxious, but the smug Philistines. As a type of these he pointed to a Protestant parson, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... him to suppose that," said Mrs Clagget; "though, to be sure, I do wish he would talk more about himself. I like a person to be communicative; those reticent people always puzzle me." ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... leave church after divine service, a car waits them at the nearest street corner, and they slip into it, don trilby hats and civilian overcoats, and sweep outside the restricted area at a haste that causes the slow-witted country policeman to puzzle over the speed of the car and forget its number while groping ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... huge earth itself, which, to ordinary scansion, is full of vulgar contradictions and offence, man, viewed in the lump, displeases, and is a constant puzzle and affront to the merely educated classes. The rare, cosmical, artist-mind, lit with the Infinite, alone confronts his manifold and oceanic qualities—but taste, intelligence and culture, (so-called,) have been against the masses, and remain so. There is plenty ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... Brumpton overhears, as he does also the inmost secrets of his lawyer, Puzzle. The latter gentleman, who has studied hard to cheat his good-natured employer, and succeeded, is a daringly drawn satire on the pettifogging attorney of the period.[A] Note the following words of wisdom, apropos to the drawing ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... herself in this way, she dozed in the salon, or consumed much food at table with a devotion that caused her to suck her fingers, on every one of which shone an antique ring of price. Her head-gear was a perpetual puzzle to the observing Lavinia, who could never discover whether it was a cap, a bonnet, or a natural production, for it was never off. Madame walked out in it, wore it all day, and very likely slept in it. At least Lavinia firmly believed so, and often beguiled the watches ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... Before the agitated girl can answer, the servant comes up, and, overhearing the question, declares that her mistress's hand has already been promised,—a statement which Eva modifies by adding that her future bridegroom is yet to be chosen. As these contradictory answers greatly puzzle Walther, she hurriedly explains that her father, the wealthiest burgher of the town, wishing to show his veneration for music, has promised his fortune and her hand to a Master Singer, the preference being given to the one who will win the prize on the ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber

... a puzzle to our party not easily solved, had Guapo not been upon the spot. But Guapo had witnessed such an incident before. Just before the mule gave the first plunge Guapo's eyes had been wandering in that direction. He had noticed an odd-looking form glide near the mule and pass under the animal's belly. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... us from this remorseless law of eternal subdivision? To make one complete man out of all this vast collection of snips and snippets of humanity. To piece all the trades, professions, and fads together, like a puzzle, till one saw the honest face of a genuine man round and whole once more. To take these dry bones of the Valley of Commerce, and powerfully breathe into them the unifying breath of life, that once more they stand up, not as fractional bones of the wrist or the ankle ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... notice it as it sneaks along the ground, some time above and some time below, as it feels disposed, and then suddenly you see it's cobwebby outlines as plainly as the concealed animals in a newspaper puzzle. If you begin to pull it out you can't stop. It reminds me of the German system of espionage, and that adds zest to my weeding. The other day I laboriously uprooted an intricate network of tentacles, all leading to one big root, which I am sure ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... It's a puzzle. If he had molested her while she was a captive, you could understand. But he ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... explain to the natives what was being done in the boat? Besides, we have but five men on board, including the master and mate, and one of them was disabled by a bad hand, so that if I had manned the boat, I should have left only three able-bodied men on board—it was a puzzle, you see, dear Uncle. Now I have entered into this long defence lest any of you dear ones should think me rash. Indeed, I don't want to run any risks at all. But there was no risk here, as I supposed, and had we chosen to go round on the other tack we should have known nothing ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge



Words linked to "Puzzle" :   mull, reflect, sudoku, mull over, meditate, think over, mystifier, tangram, stump, escape, ruminate, confuse, excogitate, mix up, puzzlement, riddle, crossword, discombobulate, monkey puzzle, speculate, ponder, problem, word square, stick, flummox, muse, contemplate, fox, befuddle, elude, nonplus, fuddle, confound, acrostic, vex, throw, bedevil, game, chew over



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