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Riddle
Definitions
- 1 A surname.
- 2 A place in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Owyhee County, Idaho.
- 3 A place in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Ohio Township, Crawford County, Indiana, named after George Washington Riddle.
- 4 A place in the United States:; A city in Douglas County, Oregon.
- 5 A place in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Ritchie County, West Virginia.
- 1 A verbal puzzle, mystery, or other problem of an intellectual nature.
"Here's a riddle: It's black, and white, and red all over. What is it?"
- 2 A sieve with coarse meshes, usually of wire, for separating coarser materials from finer, as chaff from grain, cinders from ashes, or gravel from sand.
- 3 A curtain; bedcurtain. obsolete
- 4 a coarse sieve (as for gravel) wordnet
- 5 An ancient verbal, poetic, or literary form, in which, rather than a rhyme scheme, there are parallel opposing expressions with a hidden meaning.
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- 6 A board with a row of pins, set zigzag, between which wire is drawn to straighten it.
- 7 One of the pair of curtains enclosing an altar on the north and south.
- 8 a difficult problem wordnet
- 1 To speak ambiguously or enigmatically.
- 2 To put something through a riddle or sieve; to sieve; to sift.
"You have to riddle the gravel before you lay it on the road."
- 3 To plait. obsolete, transitive
- 4 set a difficult problem or riddle wordnet
- 5 To solve, answer, or explicate a riddle or question. transitive
"Riddle me this."
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- 6 To fill with holes like a riddle.
"The shots from his gun began to riddle the targets."
- 7 explain a riddle wordnet
- 8 To fill or spread throughout; to pervade (with something destructive or weakening). figuratively
"Your argument is riddled with errors."
- 9 speak in riddles wordnet
- 10 spread or diffuse through wordnet
- 11 pierce with many holes wordnet
- 12 separate with a riddle, as grain from chaff wordnet
Etymology
From Middle English redel, redels, from Old English rǣdels, rǣdelse (“counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle”), from Proto-West Germanic *rādislī (“counsel, conjecture”). Analyzable as rede (“advice”) + -le. Akin to Old English rǣdan (“to read, advise, interpret”). Cognate with Dutch raadsel, German Rätsel.
From Middle English redel, redels, from Old English rǣdels, rǣdelse (“counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle”), from Proto-West Germanic *rādislī (“counsel, conjecture”). Analyzable as rede (“advice”) + -le. Akin to Old English rǣdan (“to read, advise, interpret”). Cognate with Dutch raadsel, German Rätsel.
From Middle English riddil, ridelle (“sieve”), from Old English hriddel (“sieve”), alteration of earlier hridder, hrīder, from Proto-West Germanic *hrīdrā, from Proto-Germanic *hrīdrą, *hrīdrǭ (“sieve”), from Proto-Germanic *hrid- (“to shake”), from Proto-Indo-European *krey-. Akin to German Reiter (“sieve”), Old Norse hreinn (“pure, clean”), Old High German hreini (“pure, clean”), Gothic 𐌷𐍂𐌰𐌹𐌽𐍃 (hrains, “clean, pure”). More at rinse.
From Middle English riddil, ridelle (“sieve”), from Old English hriddel (“sieve”), alteration of earlier hridder, hrīder, from Proto-West Germanic *hrīdrā, from Proto-Germanic *hrīdrą, *hrīdrǭ (“sieve”), from Proto-Germanic *hrid- (“to shake”), from Proto-Indo-European *krey-. Akin to German Reiter (“sieve”), Old Norse hreinn (“pure, clean”), Old High German hreini (“pure, clean”), Gothic 𐌷𐍂𐌰𐌹𐌽𐍃 (hrains, “clean, pure”). More at rinse.
From Middle English riddel, ridel, redel, rudel, from Old French ridel ("a plaited stuff; curtain"; > Medieval Latin ridellus), from rider (“to wrinkle”), from Old High German rīdan (“to turn; wrap; twist; wrinkle”). More at writhe. Doublet of rideau.
From Middle English ridlen, from the noun (see above).
Named after Ryedale in Yorkshire, as well as a spelling variant of Riddell.
See also for "riddle"
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Unscramble this word: riddle