Word Definition

Riddle

  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. Something proposed to be solved by guessing or conjecture; a puzzling question; an ambiguous proposition; an enigma; hence, anything ambiguous or puzzling.
  3. To explain; to solve; to unriddle.
  4. To perforate so as to make like a riddle; to make many holes in; as, a house riddled with shot.
  5. To speak ambiguously or enigmatically.
  6. A board having a row of pins, set zigzag, between which wire is drawn to straighten it.
  7. To separate, as grain from the chaff, with a riddle; to pass through a riddle; as, riddle wheat; to riddle coal or gravel.