puzzle

“We puzzled over her sudden departure”

Type of:: chew over, contemplate, excogitate, meditate, mull, mull over, muse, ponder, reflect, ruminate, speculate, think over
reflect deeply on a subject

Synonyms:: amaze, baffle, beat, bewilder, dumbfound, flummox, get, gravel, mystify, nonplus, perplex, pose, stick, stupefy, vex

Types:: show 4 types...; hide 4 types...; mix up, stump
cause to be perplexed or confounded; riddle
set a difficult problem or riddle; elude, escape
be incomprehensible to; escape understanding by; defy, refuse, resist
elude, especially in a baffling way

Type of:: bedevil, befuddle, confound, confuse, discombobulate, fox, fuddle, throw
be confusing or perplexing to; cause to be unable to think clearly

Types:: show 4 types...; hide 4 types...; Chinese puzzle
intricate or ingenious puzzle consisting of boxes within boxes; jigsaw puzzle
a puzzle that requires you to reassemble a picture that has been mounted on a stiff base and cut into interlocking pieces; tangram
a Chinese puzzle consisting of a square divided into seven pieces that must be arranged to match particular designs; crossword, crossword puzzle
a puzzle in which words corresponding to numbered clues are to be found and written in to squares in the puzzle

“he loved to solve chessmate puzzles”

Types:: sudoku
a number puzzle in which the numbers 1 through 9 must be placed into a grid of cells so that each row or column contains only one of each number; acrostic, word square
a puzzle where you fill a square grid with words reading the same down as across

DEFINITIONS OF: puzzle