Recent Examples on the Web For many Americans, the late Queen Elizabeth II was an enigma.
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.
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