Enigma

How to spell enigma

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce enigma

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does enigma mean?

1. nounA person, thing, or situation that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand.

Enigma in a sentence

• The new manager remained an enigma to her colleagues for months.

• The sudden drop in sales was an enigma that the analysts could not explain.

Where does enigma come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek ainigma, meaning 'a riddle' or 'a dark, obscure saying', which was built on the verb ainissesthai, 'to speak in riddles', itself from ainos, meaning 'a fable' or 'a pointed story'. Latin borrowed it as aenigma, keeping the sense of a puzzling or veiled statement, and from there it passed into English in the middle of the 1500s, at first specifically for a riddle posed as a verbal puzzle. Over time the meaning broadened from a literal riddle to anything or anyone genuinely hard to understand or explain. The spelling preserves its Greek roots faithfully: the silent-looking 'g' before the 'm' is no accident but a direct inheritance from the gm cluster of ainigma, which is the detail that trips writers who expect the word to be spelled the way it sounds.

How the word is built

• enigm- (from Greek ainigma: riddle, dark saying)
• -a (noun ending carried over from Greek/Latin)