conundrum

noun

co·nun·drum kə-ˈnən-drəm

: an intricate and difficult problem

He is faced with the conundrum of trying to find a job without having experience.

: a question or problem having only a conjectural answer

… the political conundrums involved, particularly the problem of how the richer areas … can be made to subsidize the poorer.—

Douglass Cater

: a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun (as in "Why didn't the lost hikers starve in the desert? Because of the sand which is there.")

Did you know?

We can only conjecture the exact origin of conundrum. What is known is that the word has been in use since the 1600s, and that it had various spellings, such as conimbrum, quonundrum, conuncrum, and quadundrum, before the current spelling was finally established in the following century. One theory of origin suggests that the word was coined as a parody of Latin by students at Oxford University, where it appears to have enjoyed particular popularity in its "word play" or "pun" sense. While the prevalent sense in this century is that of the seemingly unanswerable question or problem, frequently applied to heady dilemmas involving ethics, sociology, or economics, the word is sometimes so loosely applied to anything enigmatic as to be synonymous with puzzle or mystery.

Examples of conundrum in a Sentence

… giving parents a wealth of educational options sometimes presents a familiar inner-city conundrum: What if all your choices are bad ones? —

Katherine Boo, New Yorker, 9 Apr. 2001

Mention of poor eyes and good eyes brings me to the creationist's favorite conundrum. What is the use of half an eye? —

Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden, 1995

The explanation of this conundrum is to be heard, at this very moment, on certain surreptitious radio waves, on which the voice of the American convert Bilal is … transmuted into the thunderous speech of the Imam himself. —

Salman Rushdie, Harper's, December 1988

the conundrum of how an ancient people were able to build such massive structures without the benefit of today's knowledge and technology

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Rice has been planted in Italy since the fifteenth century, if not earlier, though whether it was imported by the Aragonese, the Moors, or the Saracens, or whether the Venetians brought it from Turkey, is a conundrum not easily settled. —

Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 16 Dec. 2024 Every Friday, our resident witch Roya Backlund will answer your most vulnerable conundrums through the lens of astrology, Tarot, and spirituality. —

Roya Backlund, StyleCaster, 13 Dec. 2024 One standard approach to the conundrum is to slip as many floors as possible inside the shell, which in turn means minimizing floor-to-floor heights. —

Justin Davidson, Curbed, 12 Dec. 2024 Go along on a bumpy ride with me on this conundrum. —

Lance Eliot, Forbes, 10 Dec. 2024 See all Example Sentences for conundrum