puzzle over

phrasal verb

puzzled over; puzzling over; puzzles over

: to think or worry for a long time about (something)

He's been puzzling over what went wrong.

Examples of puzzle over in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

So are the hurdles of getting the water out and puzzling over who owns it, who uses it and how to extract it without undue harm to nature. —Rodrique Ngowi, Fortune, 7 Sep. 2025

Many writers have puzzled over the question of how to understand the relationship between Christian anti-Judaism and modern nationalist anti-Semitism; given his inclination to resist eternalist interpretations, Mazower emphasizes them as separate phenomena. —Daniel May, Harpers Magazine, 20 Aug. 2025

Scientists are still puzzling over why the bumblebee catfish attempted the steep climb, though the leading theory points to upstream migration for reproduction. —Bojan Stojkovski, Interesting Engineering, 17 Aug. 2025

Experts puzzled over grant delays Though the grant cycles for colleges' CCAMPIS programs differ, the funding at many schools will dry up in September. —Zachary Schermele, USA Today, 15 Aug. 2025

Rhymes for puzzle over

• carryover
• changeover
• crossover
• cutover
• flashover
• hangover
• holdover
• layover
• leftover
• makeover
• moreover
• passover