enigmatic
Americanadjective
Usage
What does enigmatic mean? The adjective enigmatic can be used to describe someone or something that’s puzzling or mysterious. Enigmatic means resembling an enigma—someone or something that’s puzzling, mysterious, or difficult to make sense of. The word enigma can also mean a riddle, but it’s more often used to refer to something that’s so perplexing that it seems like a riddle (and perhaps was intended to seem like one), as in That book is completely enigmatic—I have no idea what it’s really about. If you call a person enigmatic, you mean that they’re hard to figure out—the reasons behind what they say and do are not easily understood. Some people try to be enigmatic to be mysterious. Example: I’ve known him for years, but he’s completely enigmatic—I have no idea what his interests are or what he’s really like.
Synonym Usage
See ambiguous.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of enigmatic
First recorded in 1620–30; from Late Latin aenigmaticus, from Greek ainigmatikós, equivalent to ainigmat- (stem of aínigma “riddle, taunt”) + -ikos adjective suffix; see origin at enigma, -ic
Explanation
Something that's enigmatic is tough to figure out. It's puzzling and even mysterious, like those weird secret college societies, Mona Lisa's smile, or the New York Times crossword. It's no mystery where the adjective enigmatic comes from: It's rooted in the Greek word for riddle. Something that's enigmatic is obscure, unclear and not an easy nut to crack. Translating the Rosetta Stone, with its ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and mysterious foreign writings, was certainly an enigmatic challenge for the archaeologists that found it.
Vocabulary lists containing enigmatic
Essential Academic Vocabulary for High School Students, List 2
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Grade 10, List 6
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30 GRE Words Beginning with "E" and "F"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Lance Oppenheim’s new film “Primetime,” in which Robert Pattinson assumes Hansen’s enigmatic role, reveals the answer — sort of.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026
The lack of recognition, Feldman argues, reverberates through Caland’s heavily impastoed portraits of Moses and her enigmatic late abstractions such as the rectilinear paintings in the “Silent Letter Series.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2026
When Sonia Gandhi became president of India's main opposition Congress party in 1998, she was an unlikely and largely enigmatic political leader.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026
The team also reevaluated three enigmatic Paleozoic hexapods using detailed comparisons of their anatomy and evolutionary relationships.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026
It was fun to provoke the enigmatic old fellow.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
