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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
conundrum
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ King remains a conundrum, a man of both major strengths and serious character flaws.
▪ The administration is facing a familiar conundrum.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ It was the moral conundrum that defined our home.
▪ Skymaster is stuck in a conundrum that affects a lot of electronic information services.
▪ So far he had found no way to resolve the conundrum facing him.
▪ The divine drama illuminated for us by the Holy Spirit disintegrates into puzzles, conundrums and endless interpretations.
▪ This broader problem touched on such philosophical conundrums as who we are and what our place is in the universe.
▪ This is not merely a curious conundrum.
▪ This is partly a humid, faintly Graham Greene-like love story, partly a conundrum about opaque and enigmatic behaviour.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Conundrum

Conundrum \Co*nun"drum\, n. [Origin unknown.]

  1. A kind of riddle based upon some fanciful or fantastic resemblance between things quite unlike; a puzzling question, of which the answer is or involves a pun.

    Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint.
    --J. Philips.

  2. A question to which only a conjectural answer can be made.

    Do you think life is long enough to let me speculate on conundrums like that?
    --W. Black.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
conundrum

1590s, Oxford University slang for "pedant," also "whim," etc., later (1790) "riddle, puzzle." Also spelled quonundrum. The sort of ponderous pseudo-Latin word that was once the height of humor in learned circles.

Wiktionary
conundrum

n. 1 A difficult question or riddle, especially one using a play on words in the answer. 2 A difficult choice or decision that must be made.

WordNet
conundrum

n. a difficult problem [syn: riddle, enigma, brain-teaser]

Wikipedia
Conundrum (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

__NOTOC__ "Conundrum" is the 114th episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The 14th episode of the fifth season.

The entire crew suffers complete memory loss after an unknown alien ship scans the Enterprise. Although unable to recall their names or duties, they quickly realize that somehow they still know how to operate the starship. In the confusion, no one notices that Kieran MacDuff, identified by the ship's computer as the Enterprise's executive officer, is someone they've never seen before. The computer also provides evidence that they are on a mission to cross into Lysian space and destroy that species's central computer, as well as any Lysian vessel that attempts to stop them. Somehow, it all seems wrong to Picard, but his new first officer insists he must follow his orders.

One of the themes of the episode is what happens to us when we lose the part of our memory which gives us context and purpose. All of a sudden the Enterprise crew are acting not according to their rank, but their core beliefs. Worf becomes dominant, Riker's libido is unleashed, yet Picard is his same grounded self. We get a brief look at who the crew really are, amid the fighting of a so-called war.

Conundrum

Conundrum may refer to:

  • A riddle whose answer is or involves a pun or unexpected twist, in particular,
    • Riddle joke
  • A logical postulation that evades resolution, an intricate and difficult problem
Conundrum (Lyons novel)

Conundrum is an original novel written by Steve Lyons and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice. A prelude to the novel, also penned by Lyons, appeared in Doctor Who Magazine #208. This novel is the fourth book in the " Alternate Universe cycle" which continues until No Future.

Conundrum (Dragonlance novel)

Conundrum is a fantasy novel by Jeff Crook, published in 2001. The story takes place in the Dragonlance setting, based on the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.

Conundrum (song)
  1. redirect Bursting Out
Conundrum (Dallas)

"Conundrum" is the two-hour series finale of the television series Dallas. The episode originally aired on CBS on May 3, 1991, and in subsequent reruns in syndication, "Conundrum" aired as two-part one hour episodes.

Nearing the point of suicide, J.R. Ewing is visited by Adam, who takes him on an It's a Wonderful Life-style journey to see what would have become of the Ewings, had he never existed.

Usage examples of "conundrum".

Such creative responsibility is, in any case, being thrust upon us -- as both the challenge of the global environment and the conundrums of bioethics testify.

In short, Willi Reinecke was a conundrum and that, more than any other thing, was what drew August close to him.

Small conundrums have always worried him like a sandspur stuck to his sock.

Beside the sea, at its windiest, his irritation was at its high the conundrum of the crashing surf not only made it impossible to concentrat on any signal he might normally have felt on the air, but in fact added to th cacophony that already was assaulting his sensitive skin.

This is certainly a very appealing proposal for avoiding the mathematical, physical, and logical conundrums of a universe that emanates from or collapses to an infinitely dense point.

The temperature and energy are high, but not infinite, since string theory has avoided the conundrums of an infinitely compressed zero-size starting point.

Such messengers are said to deliver their messages in obscure forms, and so he tries to remember all of the riddles and paradoxes and conundrums he has ever known: The way down is the way up.

For him the world was a great conundrum or a series of puzzle boxes and he a disinterested yet childishly sensitive and enthusiastic observer trying to unriddle them.

The necessity for talking what is known as 'shop,' which comes on all lawyers with the removal of the ladies, caused Chankery, a young and promising advocate, to propound an impersonal conundrum to his neighbour, whose name he did not know, for, seated as he permanently was in the background, Bustard had practically no name.

Escape was the tavern and entertainment was but to listen to the connivers with their conundrums, who suffering the same woes and telling and hearing stories of others' despairs, became anesthetised over their vessels of grog.

Already I am troubled by doubts, Iucounu might simply ignore my conundrums in favor of Panguire's Triumphant Displasms.

We took mugs of tea with us to the briefing room, Nosh still honking because Solid Shot had solved the conundrum on Blockbusters.

He might be crazy as a chronal conundrum, but his former mentor had an undeniable talent for showing up precisely where he was least wanted.

The old mysteries of why a man should take up the bass fiddle as a life work and where all the pins go are babes' conundrums compared with the one of why a human being should devote his years to the idiosyncrasies of bullets.

How I had failed to notice for two and a half days a 450-pound Bengal tiger in a lifeboat twenty-six feet long was a conundrum I would have to try to crack later, when I had more energy.