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.
Related Words
See ambiguous.
Other Word Forms
- enigmatically adverb
- nonenigmatic adjective
- nonenigmatical adjective
- nonenigmatically adverb
- unenigmatic adjective
- unenigmatical adjective
- unenigmatically adverb
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; enigma, -ic
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.
Thanks to newly discovered fossil bones, scientists have now been able to match an enigmatic 3.4-million-year-old hominin foot, first found in 2009, to a species that is different from the famous fossil Lucy.
From Science Daily
The sculptures lovingly sanctify a keystone’s rational but enigmatic contradiction of mechanics and function.
From Los Angeles Times
Bringing together archaeological approaches with scientific analyses can turn a single, enigmatic object into evidence that contributes to a broader understanding of the past.
From Science Daily
Nancy Shear wasn’t yet out of her teens when she was hired as musical assistant to the eminent and enigmatic symphony conductor Leopold Stokowski, who became her mentor and a father figure of sorts.
The BBC has investigated its history and it offers an illuminating insight into the enigmatic life of a shadow ship.
From BBC
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.
