Other forms: riddles
A riddle is a question worded to be hard to work out. Solve the riddle, ask a riddle, the riddle of the Sphinx.
The wording is the whole trick: a riddle describes something truly and in terms that point elsewhere. They are among the oldest recorded literary forms, and Old English has a famous collection of them. Note that riddle also means to fill with holes, which is a separate word.
1nounriddleA question worded to be hard to work out.
“Here's a riddle for you: what has keys but can't open locks?”
riddle is a puzzle.
Old English raedels means counsel or a riddle, from raedan, to advise or read. Read and rede come from the same counsel.
Proto-West Germanic
*rādislī — counsel, conjecture
Old English
rǣdels
Middle English
redel
English, today
riddle
Built from
From Middle English redel, redels, from Old English rǣdels, rǣdelse (“counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle”), from Proto-West Germanic rādislī (“counsel, conjecture”). Analyzable as rede + -le. Akin to Old English rǣdan (“to read, advise, interpret”). Cognate with Dutch raadsel, German Rätsel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA