Definition of riddle
- n. - A sieve with coarse meshes, usually of wire, for separating
coarser materials from finer, as chaff from grain, cinders from ashes,
or gravel from sand.
- n. - A board having a row of pins, set zigzag, between which
wire is drawn to straighten it.
- v. t. - To separate, as grain from the chaff, with a riddle; to
pass through a riddle; as, riddle wheat; to riddle coal or gravel.
- v. t. - To perforate so as to make like a riddle; to make many
holes in; as, a house riddled with shot.
- n. - Something proposed to be solved by guessing or conjecture;
a puzzling question; an ambiguous proposition; an enigma; hence,
anything ambiguous or puzzling.
- v. t. - To explain; to solve; to unriddle.
- v. i. - To speak ambiguously or enigmatically.