Other forms: quandaries
A quandary is the state of not knowing which way to choose. Two options, and something wrong with both.
The word almost always appears in the phrase in a quandary, and it takes about or over. What distinguishes it from a dilemma is mostly formality, since a dilemma is technically a choice between two equally bad options and a quandary is simply a state of puzzlement about what to do. The word is slightly old-fashioned and rather pleasant, and its origins are genuinely unknown.
1nounquandaryA state of uncertainty about what to do.
“He was in a real quandary about whether to accept.”
Quandary may be a Norse word in disguise. The suggestion is that it corrupts wandreth, meaning peril or adversity, from Old Norse vandræði, trouble, and then dressed itself in a Latin-looking ending it never earned.
Old Norse
vandræði — difficulty, trouble
Middle English
wandreth
English, today
quandary
Built from
16th century. Origin unknown; perhaps a dialectal corruption (simulating a word of - origin with suffix -ary) of wandreth (“evil, plight, peril, adversity, difficulty”), from Middle English wandreth, from Old Norse vandræði (“difficulty, trouble”), from vándr (“difficult, requiring pains and care”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word