Other forms: solved, solving, solves
To solve is to find the answer to a problem or a puzzle. Solve an equation, solve the crossword, solve the problem.
It takes a problem, a puzzle, a case or a mystery as its object, and it does not take a person: you solve a problem for somebody, never solve somebody. The noun is solution, which does double duty as both the answer and a liquid mixture — a saline solution — and the two senses come from the same idea of something being dissolved or loosened. Note solvable and unsolved, and that a solved crime is one where somebody has been charged.
1verbsolveTo find the answer to a problem or puzzle.
“Nobody has solved it in under four minutes.”
2verbcommittedTo find out who committed a crime.
“The case was solved by a parking ticket.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
solve is a way of finding answers.
Latin solvere meant to loosen or release — the same verb behind dissolve, absolve and solution. Solving a problem is untying it, which is the same picture Greek uses for analysis.
Proto-Indo-European
*lewh₁-
Middle English
solven
English, today
solve
From Middle English solven. From Middle English solven, from Latin solvō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA