Riddling

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Involving the creation or use of puzzles that require thought to solve ; full of small holes or pierced so as to allow passage of liquid or air
2. Related to composing or conveying enigmatic questions or statements meant to challenge understanding ; penetrated by many gaps or openings that cause leakage or infection
3. Pertaining to the act of puzzling someone with difficult questions or mysterious statements ; characterized by being full of holes that.make something leaky or weakened

Etymology: The adjective "riddling" comes from two quite different senses of "riddle" that have converged in one spelling. The older root is Old English "rǣdels," meaning "counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle," which passed into Middle English as "redel." Its sense of a puzzling question or enigmatic statement is the one most readers will recognise, and it is the sense that gives "riddling" its meaning of puzzling someone with difficult questions or cryptic statements. The other strand is a separate word meaning "sieve," which appears in Middle English as "riddil" or "ridelle." A sieve is full of holes, and so the verb "to riddle" came to mean to pierce something with many holes, or to pass material through a sieve. From that sense came the adjective's second meaning: something full of holes, and so leaky or weakened. Medieval English had no need to keep the two words apart in speech, so a sieve and a puzzle ended up sharing one spelling.

Synonyms: puzzling, enigmatic, mysterious, cryptic, ambiguous

Antonyms: clear, obvious, simple, straightforward, unambiguous