riddle

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪdəl/
• Rhymes: -ɪdəl

From Middle English redel, redels, from Old English rǣdels, rǣdelse (“counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle”), from Proto-Germanic *rēdisliją (“counsel, conjecture”). Analyzable as rede (“advice”) +‎ -le. Akin to Old Saxon rādisli, rādislo, rēdilsa (Low German Radels, Dutch raadsel), Old High German rātisla (German Rätsel (“riddle”)), Old English rǣdan (“to read, advise, interpret”).

riddle (plural riddles)

1. A verbal puzzle, mystery, or other problem of an intellectual nature.

   Synonyms: enigma, conundrum, brain-teaser

   Here's a riddle: It's black, and white, and red all over. What is it?

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     To wring from me, and tell to them, my secret, / That solved the riddle which I had proposed.

   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:

     Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost obliterated lines engraved there. ¶ "I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful. "What occult meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? I'm sure I don't want to read riddles in a strange gentleman's optics."

2. An ancient verbal, poetic, or literary form, in which, rather than a rhyme scheme, there are parallel opposing expressions with a hidden meaning.

• riddler

• a riddle wrapped up in an enigma
• riddle stick

riddle (third-person singular simple present riddles, present participle riddling, simple past and past participle riddled)

1. To speak ambiguously or enigmatically.
2. (transitive) To solve, answer, or explicate a riddle or question.

   Riddle me this.

From Middle English riddil, ridelle (“sieve”), from Old English hriddel (“sieve”), alteration of earlier hridder, hrīder, 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.

riddle (plural riddles)

1. 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.
2. A board with a row of pins, set zigzag, between which wire is drawn to straighten it.

riddle (third-person singular simple present riddles, present participle riddling, simple past and past participle riddled)

1. 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.

   • 2014 April 8, Helen Yemm, “Thorny problems: How can I revive a forsythia hedge? [print version 5 April 2014, p. G9]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Gardening)‎, London:

     In its finest form – two years old or more – leaf mould can be riddled (sieved) and used, mixed 50/50 with sand, to make fine potting compost for seeds and cuttings.

2. To fill with holes like a riddle.

   The shots from his gun began to riddle the targets.

3. To fill or spread throughout; to pervade.

   Your argument is riddled with errors.

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”), from Proto-Germanic *wrīþaną (“to turn; wind”). More at writhe. Doublet of rideau.

riddle (plural riddles)

1. (obsolete) A curtain; bed-curtain
2. (religious) One of the pair of curtains enclosing an altar on the north and south

From Middle English ridlen, from the noun (see above).

riddle (third-person singular simple present riddles, present participle riddling, simple past and past participle riddled)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To plait

• riddle (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• riddle on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• dreidl, lidder