enigmatic
/ˌɛnɪɡˈmatɪk
/adjective
Difficult to interpret or understand; mysterious: he took the money with an enigmatic smile...
- These people pop up mysteriously and deliver enigmatic messages before vanishing again.
- From the enigmatic Chancellor it was interpreted as the closest thing to a job application.
- Researchers hope that its experimental data will solve some of the mysteries surrounding this enigmatic body.
Synonyms
mysterious, puzzling, hard to understand, mystifying, inexplicable, baffling, perplexing, bewildering, confusing, impenetrable, inscrutable, incomprehensible, unexplainable, unfathomable, indecipherable, Delphic, oracular;
ambiguous, equivocal, paradoxical, sibylline, unaccountable, insoluble, obscure, elliptical, oblique;
arcane, abstruse, recondite, secret, esoteric, occult, cryptic
informal as clear as mud
Derivatives
enigmatical
- Granting that Korean unification is indeed an enigmatical problem, why should scholars be so concerned with the problem of Korean unification?
- Sean's expression became enigmatical, and he spread his hands. ‘That's for you to decide.’
- As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message, I saw Holmes chuckling at the expression upon my face.
enigmatically
/ adverb ...- When asked why he left India so early in his life, just after finishing school, he merely smiles and enigmatically questions: ‘Why did so many people of my generation leave India at that time.’
- ‘A few did drop off their twig,’ he replies enigmatically, when asked about suggestions that he has killed as many as 19 people.
- ‘They are on their way home,’ our guide says, enigmatically.
Origin
Early 17th century: from French énigmatique or late Latin aenigmaticus, based on Greek ainigma 'riddle' (see enigma).