![]() Becca Rothfeld, Washington Post, 20 Apr. 2021 This tasseled enigma, which resembles a burr or even a coronavirus, turns out to be nothing more extraordinary than a period at the end of a sentence, albeit one that has been magnified by a microscope. James Romm, The New York Review of Books, 14 Jan. 2023 Ellsbury was an enigma for sure during his seven seasons (2007-13) with the Red Sox remember when he got trucked by Adrian Beltre during the 2010 season, missed all but 18 games, and at one point that July read a statement in the clubhouse detailing how the Red Sox misdiagnosed his injury? -, 28 June 2021 Beneath the mystery of Masada lies the enigma of Josephus, a figure whose shifting identities make his authorial motives hard to discern. 2023 One of the strangest and least-studied enigmas, though, is how tattoos survive at all. 2023 For a first-name-basis entertainer who’s been in the public eye since childhood and remained a singular cultural force for decades, Jackson had managed to stay something of an enigma, keeping the world and her fans at arm’s length. Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 Apr. 2023 The recent films Drive My Car and Burning, two exquisite screen adaptations of Haruki Murakami’s fiction, delve into unsettling enigmas and longings, spun around performances of gripping subtlety. 2023 The stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood are more image than substance, more enigma than knowable. Scott is an enigma to many of his colleagues. Recent Examples on the Web Elected in 2018 by defeating the Democratic incumbent, Bill Nelson, Mr. In these uses, the meaning is simply a figurative extension of the original "riddle" sense. Egypt's meticulously constructed Pyramids of Giza or a theory of quantum physics, for example, might be described as enigmas. In between those uses, it was (and still is) applied to things that puzzle people. The word enigma didn't jump from referring to riddles to referring to people. Enigma comes from a Greek word that means "to speak in riddles." This meaning is clearly connected to the word's history. The word enigma originally referred not to people but to words, and specifically to words that formed a riddle or complicated metaphor that tested the listener's or reader's alertness and cleverness. ![]() An enigma is not easily understood especially because he or she has a confusing mixture of qualities that seem to be in opposition to one another-for example, the attention-seeking but reclusive musician, or the brilliant lawyer who gets lost on the drive home from the grocery store. You never know what that person is really thinking, or what his or her motives for doing something are. A person who is described as an enigma is a bit of a mystery.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |