Solve

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /sɑlv/

Definitions

1. To find a solution or explanation for a problem or question ; to successfully address or resolve a difficult issue or situation
2. To discover the correct answer or method to a puzzle or challenge ; to manage and overcome a troublesome circumstance
3. To work out the answer or outcome of a problem using reasoning ; to handle and bring to a conclusion a complicated or troubling matter

Etymology: The verb "solve" arrived in English from Latin "solvere," whose core meaning was to loosen or untie. A Roman who "solvit" a knot was undoing it, and that physical sense of unfastening is the root of everything the word later came to mean. The Latin verb also gave English "dissolve," "resolve," and "absolve," all built on the same image of loosening a tie. English borrowed the word through Middle English "solven," so it had already reached the language by the time the modern sense of finding an answer took hold. The shift from undoing a knot to undoing a puzzle is easy to follow: a tangled problem is a knot, and solving it means loosening the strands until the answer comes free.

Synonyms: resolve, figure out, work out

Antonyms: complicate, confuse