as in mystery
something hard to understand or explain
the conundrum of how an ancient people were able to build such massive structures without the benefit of today's knowledge and technology
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Recent Examples of conundrum
The conundrum: Medicaid is widely popular, including among many Republican voters in their now more working-class coalition forged by President Trump.
—
Greg Rosalsky, NPR, 26 June 2025
With nine of the nation’s least affordable cities, California lawmakers are now urgently trying to fix the affordability conundrum.
—Phillip Molnar, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 July 2025
That’s the conundrum of preservation: how to carve out an exception to time’s passage while making space for change.
—Justin Davidson, Curbed, 10 July 2025
For a while now, the best response to this conundrum has been distributed antenna systems, or DAS.
—Manish Tiwari, Forbes.com, 7 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for conundrum
Greg Rosalsky, NPR, 26 June 2025
With nine of the nation’s least affordable cities, California lawmakers are now urgently trying to fix the affordability conundrum.
—Phillip Molnar, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 July 2025
That’s the conundrum of preservation: how to carve out an exception to time’s passage while making space for change.
—Justin Davidson, Curbed, 10 July 2025
For a while now, the best response to this conundrum has been distributed antenna systems, or DAS.
—Manish Tiwari, Forbes.com, 7 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for conundrum
Recent Examples of Synonyms for conundrum
Noun
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After almost two weeks planted on top of Netflix’s top 10 list, the Eric Bana mystery series Untamed has finally fallen to a new show.—
Paul Tassi,
Forbes.com,
29 July 2025
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But what begins as a local emergency soon spirals into a deeper, more terrifying mystery, one that forces the town’s residents to confront the unknown.—
Alex Ritman,
Variety,
29 July 2025
Noun
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Except there’s a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, and coated in a puzzle.—
Irina Ivanova,
Fortune,
13 July 2025
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Chris Simon, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut, has been studying cicadas for 51 years and is still trying to understand how these small enigmas do just that.—
Sarah Henry,
The Courier-Journal,
8 July 2025
Cite this Entry
“Conundrum.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/conundrum. Accessed 4 Aug. 2025.
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