RIDDLE

n. v.

7 definitions — Webster’s Dictionary (1828)


1.
n.

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.
n.

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

3.
v.

To separate, as grain from the chaff, with a riddle; to pass through a riddle; as, riddle wheat; to riddle coal or gravel.

4.
v.

To perforate so as to make like a riddle; to make many holes in; as, a house riddled with shot.

5.
n.

Something proposed to be solved by guessing or conjecture; a puzzling question; an ambiguous proposition; an enigma; hence, anything ambiguous or puzzling. To wring from me, and tell to them, my secret, That solved the riddle which I had proposed. Milton. 'T was a strange riddle of a lady. Hudibras.

6.
v.

To explain; to solve; to unriddle. Riddle me this, and guess him if you can. Dryden.

7.
v.

To speak ambiguously or enigmatically. "Lysander riddels very prettily." Shak.


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