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Riddle   /rˈɪdəl/   Listen
Riddle

verb
(past & past part. riddled; pres. part. riddling)
1.
Pierce with many holes.
2.
Set a difficult problem or riddle.
3.
Separate with a riddle, as grain from chaff.  Synonym: screen.
4.
Spread or diffuse through.  Synonyms: diffuse, imbue, interpenetrate, penetrate, permeate, pervade.  "Music penetrated the entire building" , "His campaign was riddled with accusations and personal attacks"
5.
Speak in riddles.
6.
Explain a riddle.



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"Riddle" Quotes from Famous Books



... Negroes of the United States? Passing into its huge hopper and between its upper and nether millstones, are they to come out grist for the nation, or mere chaff, doomed like the Indian to ultimate extinction in the raging fires of racial and industrial rivalry and progress? Sphinx's riddle, say you, which yet awaits its Oedipus? Perhaps, though an examination of the past may show us that the riddle is not awaiting its Oedipus so much as his answer, which he has been writing slowly, word by word, and inexorably, ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke

... telling her Stories of Nuns, and endeavouring to bring her to the Knowledge of the true God: But of all Discourses, Caesar liked that the worst, and would never be reconciled to our Notions of the Trinity, of which he ever made a Jest; it was a Riddle he said would turn his Brain to conceive, and one could not make him understand what Faith was. However, these Conversations fail'd not altogether so well to divert him, that he liked the Company of us Women much above the Men, for he could not drink, and he is but an ill Companion ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... life is like a pilgrimage Whats his life then that lives in mariage Tis Sisiphus his toyle that with a stone Doth doe what surely for ease must be done His laboures Journey's endles, tis no Riddle Since he's but halfe on's way that stands ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... home duties, yet leave this difficulty unfaced, in that they look for all the pleasure of their life outside home, and within that home allow themselves to live in an atmosphere of friction and peevishness. The girl who does that has left the riddle of home life unsolved: she was meant to wrestle with that difficulty till she wrung from it the blessing, the peace which comes only from self-conquest and acceptance of all the circumstances ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... out alone, to try my luck with the riddle. As I entered the clearing, the hummer was seen at his post, and my suspicions fastened upon a small wild apple-tree, perhaps twenty rods distant. I went to examine it, and presently the bird followed me. He perched in its top, but seemed not to be jealous of my proximity, ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... appointed John W. Riddle as secretary of legation to the embassy at Constantinople, where he has remained to ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... ready way to virtue; it is not an easy point of art to disentangle ourselves from this riddle or web of sin. To perfect virtue, as to religion, there is required a panoplia, or complete armour; that whilst we lie at close ward against one vice, we lie not open to the assault of another. There go so many circumstances to ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... upon as a madman. "One is bound on a wheel," I muttered, and I began to think how men under sentence of death must often wonder why they were selected especially for such a fate, and the mystery, the riddle of it all, must be perhaps the greatest part ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... whether it is to build a house or to enlarge your estate, or to increase the number of your slaves, there is granted to you a great habitation, vast acres, and a multitude of men.' Rumour had immediately seized on this riddle and now began to solve it. Nothing was more talked of, especially in Vespasian's presence: such conversation ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... association. It was held in the roof ballroom of the Adams Hotel and was a most democratic affair, all classes being represented, as all had found a common interest in public welfare. A few months later the association gave a handsomely appointed luncheon at the Adams with Senator Agnes Riddle as guest of honor. Its purpose was to show appreciation of her heroic stand for women when she voted against the male appointee of the Governor of her own party to take the place of a woman expert (a member of the other party) on the Board ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... themselves, as CORNEILLE did, with some flat design, which (like an ill riddle) is found out ere it be half proposed; such Plots, we can make every way regular, as easily as they: but whene'er they endeavour to rise up to any quick Turns or Counter-turns of Plot, as some of them have attempted, since CORNEILLE's Plays have been less in vogue; you ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... the physician nodding, "but our ways run side by side without ever touching, and our final goal is the reading of a riddle, of which there are many solutions. You believe yourself to have found the right one, and perhaps ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of those cruel spectacles; and if it were not so ancient a custom, founded, as I had heard, upon the wisest maxims, I should be apt to censure the inhumanity of those who introduced it." All this will be a riddle to the waking reader, till I discover the scene my imagination had formed upon the maxim, "That a lion would never hurt a true virgin." "I dreamed, that by a law of immemorial time, a he-lion was kept in every parish at the common charge, and in a place provided, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... didn't appear so greatly upset. She was more puzzled-like—kep' on mutterin': 'Who did it? Who could have the cool darin' to shoot him dead in broad daylight, at his own door, before his servants?' She was sort of forcin' herself to think, to find out, just as if it was a riddle, an' the right answer was on the tip of her tongue. An' then, all at once, she gev a queer little laugh. 'Why, of course, it was Hilton,' ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... were returning from Crosthwaite Church in the afternoon. For "oncers" were unknown in those times, neither by poets and historians like Southey, nor by travellers such as we were. We had attended morning service. A stranger officiated. His name was Bush, and this is important. A family "riddle" impressed the name upon me. "Why were we all like Moses to-day?" "We had heard the word out of a Bush," was the reply. But at the afternoon service I was deeply impressed. The Rev. M. Bush having read the lessons, came out of the prayer-desk, and ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... other world a place of torture or undying bliss, death the prime object of our meditation, and lifelong abandonment of our fellow-men the highest mode of existence. Why, then, should monks, so persuaded of the riddle of the earth, have placed themselves in scenes so beautiful? Why rose the Camaldolis and Chartreuses over Europe? white convents on the brows of lofty hills, among the rustling boughs of Vallombrosas, in the grassy meadows of Engelbergs,—always ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... he was determined to have her, for there was not another female for him in the whole wide world—they all think that for the time being—and of course he married her. Then he made a seven-day feast, and unfortunately he amused the company with a riddle. Of course his wife was dying to know the answer, and her people threatened her if she did not find it out, and altogether it was a lively discussion, and she made his life a burden and a delusion and she wept ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... O my Gul Bahar"—and he took her hand, and carried it to his cheek, and pressed it softly there—"deal me no riddle. What is it you say? One may do ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... his merriment, which by no means relieved me. "Shall I give you some good advice?" continued Gulab-Sing, changing his tone for a more serious one. "Don't trouble your head with such vain speculations. The day when this riddle yields its solution, the Rajput Sphinx will not seek destruction in the waves of the sea; but, believe me, it won't bring any profit to the Russian Oedipus either. You already know every detail you ever will learn. So leave the ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... read this riddle, monsieur?" she asked. "All kinds of solutions come to me, madam, but none that seem to ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... gates. For hadst thou done this last thing or left the first undone, I should have known that thy heart was wicked, and by now thou wouldst have wept indeed—tears of blood, Mopo. It is well for thee, then, that thou hast read my riddle aright." ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... fulfilled. While everyone else was full of athletic and scholastic fervour, he remained listless and even sulky. Some said it was because Ainger had proposed the great scheme, and Felgate disdained to play second riddle even to the captain. Others said it was because he could not win anything even if he tried. Others darkly hinted that he was one of the authors of the house's present disgrace; and others whispered that there was no love lost between Railsford and his fourth prefect. In this last ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... contentment, which I believe you are too candid to counterfeit. Your easy solution of that great human riddle given the world, to find happiness. The Athenian and Alexandrian schools dwindle into nothingness. Commend me to your 'categories,' O Queen of Philosophy." She withdrew her searching eyes, and fixed them moodily on the fire, twirling the tassel ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... performances were sufficiently wretched, but as the audience was admitted without cost, they were too polite to express any disapprobation. We recorded all our doings in a little weekly paper, published, I believe, by Jemmy Riddle, at the corner of Chestnut and Third-Street, opposite the tavern kept by that sturdy ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah

... tendency which has hurried him into some of those ridiculous errors, which he has made so frequently. The explanation of it all, is that curious figure that sits so silent, remote, and friendless on the front Opposition bench. Lord Randolph is still the riddle which nobody can read. Whenever Mr. Balfour appears Lord Randolph does his best to efface himself, even in the places which men select on the front bench. Here is a hint of that eternal conflict and play of ferocious ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... stopped speaking suddenly and embraced Iskender, kissing him repeatedly on both cheeks. At the same moment a little cavalcade went ambling by, which solved the riddle of his strange behaviour. Iskender caught a scowl of disapproval from the Sitt Carulin, a glance of agonised appeal from the Sitt Hilda, and then a malicious grin from old Costantin, as he ran by on foot, prodding with his staff the hindmost jackass, on which the Sitt ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... aware of that," said Burley; "but, if thou hadst concealed it, I should, nevertheless, have found out thy riddle. Now, hearken to my words. This Miles Bellenden hath means to subsist ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... a pretty secret of it, and I don't blame you. But I can guess your riddle. Listen. If anything befell M. de ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... viz., that there was the analogy of other proper names of men—as Ephraim, etc.—in its favour; and such an analogy was required,—for, otherwise, the name would not have been, as it was intended to be, a riddle. Our whole exposition, however, which was already in substance, although without proper foundation and justification, advanced by Jerome, is raised above the condition of a mere hypothesis, by its being compared with chap. iii. There, the words, "They turn ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... apothecary's finger the day before his death, he smiled and said: "Now the wonderful fact of his discovery is explained. A drop of the paternal blood must have found its way into the mixture. Thus one riddle after another is solved, and soon the last mystery that remains ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... in the meantime, I began to speculate as to why the boar had come with a liberty cap upon his head. After exhausting my invention with a thousand foolish guesses, I made bold to put the riddle which teased me to my old informant. "Why, sure," he replied, "even your slave could explain that; there's no riddle, everything's as plain as day! This boar made his first bow as the last course of yesterday's dinner and ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... flames! That with thy music-footed horse doth strike The clear light out of crystal, on dark earth, And hurl'st instinctive fire about the world, Wake, wake, the drowsy and enchanted night, That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle: O thou great prince of shades, where never sun Sticks his far-darted beams, whose eyes are made To shine in darkness, and see ever best Where men are blindest! open now the heart Of thy abashed oracle, that for fear Of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... come, come, little Tiny, Let's hear what you have to tell Learned of the years you've scampered Over the hill and dell— What! Only a bark for answer? Now, Tiny, that isn't the thing Will help unravel the riddle ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... (one of the effects of the resolution was entirely to change the coloring of all testimony throughout the vast Republic of Leaplow) made his report on the subject-matter of the resolution. This person was a Tangent, who had a besetting wish to become a Riddle, although the leaning of our house was decidedly Horizontal; and, as a matter of course, he took the Riddle side of this question. The report, itself, required seven hours in the reading, commencing with the subject ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... dressed out in such fanciful garb, gained double force and acceptance. We may not be able to follow a poet in his wanderings; his local allusions may obscure to us much of his meaning; the doctrine of his allegory may be to us largely a riddle; and the connection between the body of its thought and illustration and the application, or solution, of the poetical conundrum may be past our comprehension; but the [Page 112] play of the poet's fancy, whether ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... to solve the riddle of a crime the detective's first task is to study the scene topographically. Plans and elevations of a room or house are made. The position of each object is painstakingly noted. In addition, the all-seeing eye of the camera is called into requisition. The plundered room ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... existence, as a vera causa, of the process by which a saying. 'Apollo pursues Daphne,' remains in language, while the meaning of the words is forgotten. This process is essential, but undemonstrated. See the chapter here on 'The Riddle Theory.' ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... ye these Notes-our wit quintuple hear; Five able-bodied editors combine Their strength prodigious in each laboured line!" O wondrous vintner! hopeless seemed the task To bung these drainings in a single cask; The riddle's read-five leathern skins contain The working juice, and scarcely feel the strain. Saviours of Rome! will wonders never cease? A ballad cackled by five tuneful geese! Upon one Rosinante five stout knights Ride fiercely into visionary fights! A cap and bells five sturdy ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... patriarchs that seem to tell them over and over lest they forget. They tower virid and virile. They stretch wide arms over the pasture people in benediction and sheltering love, but they are not of them. The reading of the deep riddle of the universe has made them prophets and seers and they dwell alone in their dignity. I may make my home beneath their sheltering shade, caress their rugged gray trunks and fall asleep to the mystical murmur of their voices, but I can never be ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... am the first untutored man who has divined truths of which no glimpse was given him from without. It may be, too, that many others before myself have been perplexed by the workings of their hearts and brains and have died without ever finding an answer to the riddle." "Ah, we poor folk," added Patience, "we are never forbidden excess in labour, or in wine, or in any of the debauches which may destroy our minds. There are some people who pay dearly for the work of our arms, so that the poor, in their eagerness to satisfy the wants of their families, may work ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... wend with me, To leave both tower and town, Thou first must guess what life lead we That dwell by dale and down. And if thou canst that riddle read, As read full well you may, Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed As blithe as Queen of May." Yet sung she "Brignall banks are fair, And Greta woods are green; I'd rather rove with Edmund there ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... the wisest baffled in even guessing at this riddle, as they were a third time, when one Prosper B. Shaw came with the story that while rowing down in the drainage canal, he had come upon, floating gently along, dissevered at the knee joint, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... riddle of our time. I look out upon the windy Channel and think of all those millions just over there, who seem to get busier and keener every hour. I could imagine the day of reckoning coming like a swarm ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... then; and God be with him! as surely He will be, if the simple, faithful prayers of fair, sad Hepsy Ann are heard. Thus will he, thus only can any, solve that sphinx-riddle of life which is propounded to each passer to-day, as of old in fable-lands,—failing to read which, he dies the death of rusting discontent,—solving whose mysteries, he has revealed to him the deep secret of his life, and sees and knows what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... You must have manufactured this riddle out of sheer wantonness, for in the indictment you charge me with reverencing gods! Can anyone believe that there are human affairs, or equine affairs, or instrumental affairs without believing that there are men, ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... throw the gospels into the waste-paper basket, or put them away on the fiction shelf of our libraries. I venture to reply that we shall be, on the contrary, in the position of the man in Bunyan's riddle who found that "the more he threw away, the more he had. "We get rid, to begin with, of the idolatrous or iconographic worship of Christ. By this I mean literally that worship which is given to pictures and statues of him, and to finished and unalterable stories ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... strange,—and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle in the reader's way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon guessing how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many years after it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... She would guess again and again, and assume the most gleeful surprise upon at last giving the proper answer, and then she would laugh jubilantly, and mockingly scout herself with having given out "a fool-riddle" that she could guess "with ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... under it,' he thought. In the train of the gale came thunder and lightning. Waring sat under a bush watching the powers of the air in conflict, he saw the fury of their darts and heard the crash of their artillery, and mused upon the wonders of creation, and the riddle of man's existence. Then a flash came, different from the others in that it brought the human element upon the scene; in its light he saw a vessel driving helplessly before the gale. Down from his spirit-heights he came at once, and all the man within him was stirred for those on board, ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... view is that of the philosopher and religionist, who ponder the tie that binds "soul" and body in an effort to solve the riddle of "creation" and pierce the ...
— Psychology and Achievement • Warren Hilton

... lady, there's nothing to prevent you from covering me, calling for help, and solving the riddle as you please. After all, what does it matter, whether the end comes to-day or to-morrow, for it would be impossible to elude the police. You don't understand, I know—but I am not flying from justice: it was a case of shoot or be shot. You will notice that only one cartridge ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... hand—each trying who will give in first and find his store of riddles soonest exhausted. In fact, from childhood the Finn is taught to think and invent by means of riddles; in his solitude he ponders over them, and any man who evolves a good one is a hero in his village. They meet together for "riddle evenings," and most amusing are the punishments given to those who cannot answer three in succession. He is sent to Hymyl, which is something like being sent ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... the better of Ferdinand Holm. Louise's dresses hung still untouched in his room, her shoes stood under the bed; it still seemed to him that some day she must open the door and walk in. And when he lay there alone at night, the riddle was always with him: Where is she now?—why should she have died?—would he never meet her again? He saw her always as she had stood that day playing to the sick folks in the hospital ward. But now she was dressed in white. And it seemed quite ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... his. Between them they polished the riddle; but by the time it was done the Home Secretary had begun to find Meadows's little wife, whose existence he had not noticed hitherto, more agreeable than Lady Dunstable's table with its racked countenances, and its too ample supply of pencils and paper. ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... other as they called out "Auf wiedersehen" they both knew that they were saying good bye forever, which proved to be true, as they were divorced a year later. In 1896 he returned to Sweden so broken in health through his tremendous wrestling with the riddle of life that he went into the sanitorium of his friend, Dr. Aliasson at Wstad. After two months he was sufficiently restored to go to Austria, at the invitation of his divorced wife's family, to see his child. Then back to Sweden, to Lund, a university town, where he lived solely to absorb ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg

... deep water, and as soon as she disappeared my sense of humour returned. The episode appeared more clearly, as a flirtation with an enigmatic, but decidedly charming, chance travelling companion. The girl was a riddle, and a riddle once guessed is a very trivial thing. She, too, would be a very trivial thing when I had found a solution. It occurred to me that she wished me to regard her as a symbol, perhaps, of the future—as a type of those ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... something of a riddle to him, and he let the subject drift away. "Shall we go and sit in the cathedral?" he asked, ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... it was! It revealed to Hugh what he had before only dimly suspected, that the poet, the moralist, the priest, the philosopher, and even the man of science, were all in reality engaged in the same task—penetrating the vast and bewildering riddle of the world. In Plato he found the philosophical method suffused by a burning poetical imagination; and he thought that Plato solved far more metaphysical riddles by a species of swift intuition than ever could be done by the closest analysis. He realised that Plato's theory ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... uniform one, for a law that does not possess uniformity is no law; otherwise, it would be an unintelligible revelation, and the only possible thing left for us to do would be to attempt to solve it like a riddle—guess it out. It would be as if the writer were to use words with every variety of meaning peculiarly his own attached, without informing the reader what signification to give them in a given instance. No man has a right thus to ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... restoracio. result : rezulti; sekvo; rezultato. retail : detale, pomalgrande. revenge : vengx'o, -i. revolution : revolucio. reward : rekompenco, premio. rhubarb : rabarbo. rhyme : rim'i, -o. rhythm : ritmo. rib : ripo. ribbon : rubando. rice : rizo. riddle : kribrilo; enigmo. right : ("—hand") dekstra; ("legal—") rajto; (straight) rekta; (correct) prava. righteous : justa, pia. ring : ringo, rondo; sonorigi. ringworm : favo. rinse : gargari, laveti. riot : tumulto. rise : levigxi, supreniri, deveni. risk ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... its own in that, next to itself, it loves to think about something which it can think about forever. For that reason the life of the cultured and thinking man is a constant study and meditation on the beautiful riddle of his destiny. He is always defining it in a new way, for just that is his entire destiny, to be defined and to define. Only in the search itself does the human mind discover the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... joyn'd, Throttl'd at length in the Air, expir'd and fell; So after many a foil the Tempter proud, Renewing fresh assaults, amidst his pride 570 Fell whence he stood to see his Victor fall. And as that Theban Monster that propos'd Her riddle, and him, who solv'd it not, devour'd; That once found out and solv'd, for grief and spight Cast her self headlong from th' Ismenian steep, So strook with dread and anguish fell the Fiend, And to his crew, that sat consulting, brought Joyless triumphals of his hop't success, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... my riddle is read. Southern—Virginia—gentleman. No wonder she has no love to spend on country or flag; no wonder we couldn't agree. And yet it can't be that,—what were the first words I ever heard from her mouth?" and, remembering that terrible denunciation of the "peculiar institution" ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... woman,—and so varied and romantic, so fruitful in incident and rich in experience, that it excites curiosity and invites speculation. It is a life difficult, if not impossible, to understand. Herein lies its peculiar and engrossing fascination. It is a curious web to unravel, a riddle to solve, a problem at once stimulating and baffling. Like the history of the times, it is full of puzzling contradictions and striking contrasts. The daughter of a provincial notary, Madame Recamier ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... "A riddle slice; a candle box; two ventilators; two glasses for the wash-hand stand; one tin dust pan; one small tin tea kettle; one pair of candlesticks; one carpet brush; one flower dredge; three tin extinguishers; ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... instant the key of the riddle was in my hands, and I saw that every third word, beginning with the first, would give a message which might well drive old ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... by the portrait of the poet being, by mistake, marked thirteen) Cowley published some of his early effusions, under the title of 'Poetical Blossoms.' While at school he produced a comedy of a pastoral kind, entitled, 'Love's Riddle,' but it was not published till he went to Cambridge. To that university he proceeded in 1636, and two years after, there appeared the above-mentioned comedy, with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby, one of the marvellous men of that age; and also 'Naufragium Joculare,' a comedy ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... wife said to him, "Cassim, I know you think yourself rich, but you are much mistaken; Ali Baba is infinitely richer than you; he does not count his money but measures it." Cassim desired her to explain the riddle, which she did, by telling him the stratagem she had used to make the discovery, and shewed him the piece of money, which was so old that they could not tell in what prince's reign ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... that he had had them! His love and hers—this had been his shield through all. What he saw in her grave face, her mournful eyes uplifted to his own—this was the solution of the riddle of his life, the reason for his moods of melancholy, the answer to a thousand unspoken prayers. He felt his heart thrill strong and full, felt his blood spring in strong current through his veins, until they strained, ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... find out whether he knows what we ask, or whether he can and will grant it: by deeds, when, by what we do, we probe another's prudence, will or power. Either of these may happen in two ways. First, openly, as when one declares oneself a tempter: thus Samson (Judges 14:12) proposed a riddle to the Philistines in order to tempt them. In the second place it may be done with cunning and by stealth, as the Pharisees tempted Christ, as we read in Matt. 22:15, sqq. Again this is sometimes done ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... her a great deal in a serious way, but Hetty didn't mind that much, for she never listened: whatever Dinah might say, she almost always stroked Hetty's cheek after it, and wanted to do some mending for her. Dinah was a riddle to her; Hetty looked at her much in the same way as one might imagine a little perching bird that could only flutter from bough to bough, to look at the swoop of the swallow or the mounting of the lark; but she did not care to solve such ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... his pistol, "Mr. Black will please note that while I am standing by the bulwarks I shall be watching indeed. Should he make an attempt to escape from the vessel I shall riddle him ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... dame a foe to mirth. Her ballad, jest, and riddle's quaint device, Oft cheered the shepherds round their social hearth; Whom levity or spleen could ne'er entice To purchase chat or laughter at the price Of decency. Nor let it faith exceed, That Nature forms a rustic taste ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... penny, but I zaid five poun'. The wager was laid, but the money not down. Zinging right fol de ree, fol de riddle lee While I am a-zinging I'd five ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... Philosopher that I was I could not explain the sinking and the fear that took possession of me. The philosopher did not know himself. All his thought and all his reasoning could not solve the simple riddle the quick intuition of a ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field

... within her from out the sight of honest folks; she told her the man had turned his back forever, that only the ashy road of the ruined remained for her to tread. And that was how the great news that Nature had looked upon her for a mother came to Joan Tregenza. Here was the riddle of the mysterious voice unraveled; here was the secret of her physical sorrows made clear. She looked wildly from one to the other—from the man to the woman; then she tottered a step away, clutching her money and her ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Guthrie, Hendricks, Johnson, McDougall, Morgan, Nesmith, Norton, Riddle, Saulsbury, Stewart, Stockton, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... of the riddle," Sophie whispered, when he saw her that evening. "Read her note. The ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling

... feeling to what is momentous in human life. Literature has its piety, its conscience; it cannot long forget, without forfeiting all dignity, that it serves a burdened and perplexed creature, a human animal struggling to persuade the universal Sphinx to propose a more intelligible riddle. Irresponsible and trivial in its abstract impulse, man's simian chatter becomes noble as it becomes symbolic; its representative function lends it a serious beauty, its utility endows ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... man to whip himself in cold blood is a hard thing, especially if the stripes fall upon an ill-nourished and worse-fed body. Let my lady Dulcinea have patience, and when she is least expecting it, she will see me made a riddle of with whipping, and 'until death it's all life;' I mean that I have still life in me, and the desire to make good what ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... which I still can harp, and carp, and fiddle. What farther hath befallen or may befall The hero of this grand poetic riddle, I by and by may tell you, if at all: But now I choose to break off in the middle, Worn out with battering Ismail's stubborn wall, While Juan is sent off with the despatch, For which all ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... train of cars!" cried Daddy Brown, coming into the tent just in time to hear what Bunny said. "Say, is that a riddle?" ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope

... feel sufficiently courageous or hungry to mingle in the gathering. Noli turbare circulos meos, these people, too, seemed to be saying. All were thinking strenuously, absorbed in the profoundest meditation—they had plenty of time for profound meditation—upon the riddle of life. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... riddle that I could not read. Among my last actions of this day was one that had been almost my earliest, and bedtime found me staring at his letter, as I stood, half undressed, by my table. The calm moon brought back Udolpho and ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... not cross, although it is hard for any one who has read The Riddle of the Sands to refrain. Had we been there in the nesting season I might have wandered in search of the sea birds' and the plovers' eggs, just for old sake's sake, as I have in the island of Coll, but we ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... love he bore the lady whom most he loved, to expound to her what he had said touching Filippello. He answered thus:—"You have adjured me by her to whom I dare not deny aught that you may ask of me; my riddle therefore I will presently read you, provided you promise me that neither to him nor to any one else will you impart aught of what I shall relate to you, until you shall have ocular evidence of its truth; ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... made a hopeless riddle to him, he might, if he had had a less intense nature, have sat weaving, weaving—looking towards the end of his pattern, or towards the end of his web, till he forgot the riddle, and everything else but ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... want of balance between the interest on mortgages and the products of the soil. Those who, from 1802 till 1827, had merely laughed at the little man as they saw him trotting to Saint-Thibault and attending to his business, like a merchant living on his vineyards, found the answer to the riddle when the ant-lion seized his prey, after waiting for the day when the extravagance of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse culminated in the ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... an oak, Fol de riddle, lol de riddle, he ding do, Watching a tailor shape his coat! Sing he, sing ho, the old carrion crow, Fol de riddle, lol ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various

... and Being, Thou wouldst see through Birth and Death. Thou wouldst solve the eternal Riddle, Thou, a speck, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... Mere wonder would yield place to meditation. Ah! what secrets must lurk in those crystal depths, if only one could surprise them—wrest them from the beings who inhabit that nether realm! Possibly even the world-riddle might so be solved! And thus it came to pass that most water spirits were deemed to be dowered ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... had magnified her good offices, and had warned her to beware of arousing Von Holzen's anger. Indeed, her use of Percy Roden was at an end, and yet she would not let him go. Cornish was puzzled, and so was Dorothy. Percy Roden was gratified, and read the riddle by the light of his own vanity. Mrs. Vansittart was not, perhaps, the first woman to puzzle her neighbours by refusing to relinquish that which she did not want. She was not the first, perhaps, to nurse a subtle desire to play some part in the world rather than be left ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... Was as the lovely star when morn has broke The roof of darkness, in the golden dawn, Half-hidden, and yet beautiful. I'll pawn My hopes of Heaven-you know what they are worth — That the presumptuous pedagogues of Earth, 110 If they could tell the riddle offered here Would scorn to be, or being to appear What now they seem and are—but let them chide, They have few pleasures in the world beside; Perhaps we should be dull were we not chidden, 115 Paradise fruits ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... horse at once. It is all very mysterious and extraordinary; but then you have been a mystery, Rupert Hyde, a riddle and a puzzle, ever since ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... genius. Whether they control, or are at the mercy of, those secret forces; whether they have in fact learnt, but may not speak, the true answer to the eternal Why; whether they are not perhaps a riddle even to their own simple selves: these are points which can never ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... "Riddle me, riddlemaree," quoth I, "Is a game that's ill to win, And the day is o'er fair such tasks to try"— Said he, "Ye shall know at the inn." With that he suited his path to mine And we travelled merrily, Till I was ware of the promised sign ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various

... Parnell and his followers. But the last word on that has not yet been spoken. Another pen than mine may, perchance before long, tell the whole truth about that tragic episode, and explain what is still an unsolved riddle in all dispassionate minds. Without challenging and exciting the strongest racial prejudices, it will be impossible to lift the veil, and I have no intention of affording even the slightest preliminary peep behind the scenes of that dramatic affair. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... in Chiltistan, and they found the riddle easy to read. The melons were the infidels which would be cut to pieces, even as a knife cuts a melon. The grain was the army of ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... things—but, suddenly, man appears, far too much developed to be the "next step" in a well-linked chain of evolutionary evidence. Perhaps something like the events of this story furnishes the answer to the riddle. ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper

... architectural effects; the close of Paradise Lost; Addison and Bentley; Paradise Regained; the choice of subject; Milton's favourite theme—temptation; other possible subjects; the Harrying of Hell; Samson Agonistes; the riddle ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... western gate, Luke Havergal, There are the crimson leaves upon the wall. Go, — for the winds are tearing them away, — Nor think to riddle the dead words they say, Nor any more to feel them as they fall; But go! and if you trust her she will call. There is the western gate, Luke Havergal ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... receive All honourable aidance! But haste hence! Travel will ripen thee, and enterprise Beseems thy years! Be thou henceforth my soldier! And whatsoe'er betide thee, still believe 415 That in each noble deed, achieved or suffered, Thou solvest best the riddle of thy birth! And may the light that streams from thine own honour Guide thee to that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the way, you damned Yankee," shrieked the crackers, "or we'll riddle you with bullets." Then they gave ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... man is your enemy: no man is your friend. All alike are your teachers. Your enemy becomes a mystery that must be solved, even though it take ages: for man must be understood. Your friend becomes a part of yourself, an extension of yourself, a riddle hard to read. Only one thing is more difficult to know—your own heart. Not until the bonds of personality are loosed, can that profound mystery of self begin to be seen. Not till you stand aside from it will it in any way reveal itself to your understanding. ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins

... laughed as a man laughs who knows the answer to an amusing riddle and sees his neighbour's mental floundering. "He admits that it's an honest and respectable line ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... RIDDLE. A question-mark gone mad. A foolish member of the Interrogation family whose most fiendish offspring is "How old is ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... read the riddle of the sphinx, and your words are as enigmatical. I have not begun to find their clew," replied Madeleine, pausing in the garland she was forming, and letting the ivy drop unnoticed ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... the library where the colonel sat over Mary Nellen's last classic riddle, she couldn't ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... the boy, who jumped along to the tune of a jig he was whistling, now and then changing the whistle into a song to the same tune, with very odd words indeed, and a burden of gibberish ending with "riddle-diddle-dow," Furlong wondered what a milliner could have to do in such an establishment, and his wonder was not lessened when his guide added, "The milliner is a queer chap, and maybe he'll tell ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... two," explained Thrush, "and go on so dividing them until you come down to the indivisible unit which is the answer to the riddle. Animal or Vegetable? Vegetable or Mineral? Northern or Southern Hemisphere? Ah! I thought your childhood was not so very much longer ago ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... is said to have visited Solomon, "to prove him with hard questions," by which have generally been understood enigmatical puzzles. Some of these are to be found in sacred writ, of which the riddle which Samson proposed to the young men of Timnath, is a very ancient and curious specimen. It appears from the writings of the ancients, that the Greeks and all the Eastern nations, were singularly ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... window, studying the direction of the broken ship's lantern. He traces the angle with his finger. The gesture ends with an accusing finger pointing at Red Joe. He whistles softly. For a moment his eye rests upon the gun, which leans against the clock. He has guessed the riddle. He advances casually, but with dirk in hand. He comes in front of Joe. Suddenly he presses the blade of ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks

... speech the fascination of music. Mr. Chainmail could not reconcile the dress of the damsel with her conversation and manners. He threw out a remote question or two, with the hope of solving the riddle, but, receiving no reply, he became satisfied that she was not disposed to be communicative respecting herself, and, fearing to offend her, fell upon other topics. They talked of the scenes of the mountains, of the dingle, the ruined ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... married her. Wretched man, what is he to do with these exigeant and never-to-be-satisfied women? Our mothers pined because our fathers drank and were rakes. Our wives pine because we are virtuous but inadequate. Who is this sphinx, this woman? Where is the Oedipus that will solve her riddle of happiness, and then strangle her?—only to ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... England; the other is Bede, the venerable father of English history and English learning, in the North of England. Venerable he truly was. We need not go back to the legend which supposed that he received the title from the Roman Senate for having solved a strange riddle which they could not answer; nor to the other legend, which tells us that, on his grave-stone at Durham, you can still read the inscription in which it is said that an angel in the night filled ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious affectation of poetry: their poetry is sinking below the flatness and insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses, were silent and inglorious: the bards of Constantinople seldom rose above a riddle or epigram, a panegyric or tale; they forgot even the rules of prosody; and with the melody of Homer yet sounding in their ears, they confound all measure of feet and syllables in the impotent strains which have received the name of political or city ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... mentioned. There was nothing to be learned by inquiry, and Henley determined to make another effort to force open the door. His resolution was not entirely the result of curiosity, for he had taken such a sudden and strong liking for the girl that he disliked the thought of leaving her; and yet the riddle of her environment was such that he conceived it to be no more than a proper regard for his own safety to take such a precaution while visiting her. Having reached this determination, he cast about for the means of executing it. He thought he should require ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale



Words linked to "Riddle" :   dumbfound, puzzle out, penetrate, sift, figure out, amaze, pose, problem, stick, communicate, sieve, nonplus, solve, work out, bewilder, strain, beat, baffle, spiritize, spiritise, flummox, mystify, vex, lick, pervade, get, puzzle, perforate, intercommunicate, stupefy, perplex, James Riddle Hoffa, work, gravel, pierce, riddle canon



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