enigma

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Something or someone puzzling, mysterious or inexplicable.

   • I was, and still am, an enigma to myself.
   • At the heart of all things there is to be found a certain coincidentia oppositorum; and herein, as I have said, lies the key to our problem: the enigma of indeterminism. The astounding fact is that freedom and necessity can coexist;
   • Tucked inconspicuously away behind the shoal of darkness that hung in those gloomy corners, the silhouetted enigma was ogling him in halcyon silence.
2. 2

   A riddle, or a difficult problem.

   • Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l'envoy, begin.
   • This little story before us is an amplification of that clever enigma, and though essentially a story for children, as its title-page tells us, would beguile many a one much older of a half-hour in the evening.
   • Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma.
3. 3

   Riddles and puzzles, collectively.

   • From the beginning, readers of The Enigma of Arrival are likely to feel surrounded by enigma and puzzle.
   • It was her secret, which she shared with no one except Alec Malone. Her husband would not have understood. Invisible wounds were not in his inventory of useful patents. He had even less interest in enigma.
4. ›+ 8 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Mysteriousness

      Mysteriousness; obscurity; a lack of clarity.

      • In those halcyon days I believed that the source of enigma was stupidity .
      • The circumstances under which the band is obtained and the strange story that it tells are wrapped in enigma that challenges the hermeneutic powers of the reader .
      • […] a politics of hybridity that led the brothers to that overarching trait of their art: the accumulation of styles, subjects, materials, textualities, all framed in enigma .
   2. 5

      A style of literature characterized by obscurity and hints of transcendental meaning.

   3. 6

      Alternative letter-case form of Enigma.

      • This U-boat consistently used Norddeich or Kootwijk frequencies for her shadowing reports, all of which were in enigma.
      • Because of the danger of intercept, transmissions by a submarine are minimized and are coded by enigma.
      • Everybody knows enigma was the code the Germans used back in World War Two. There was a movie about the Brit guy who broke it.
   4. 7

      A protein with three LIM domains (a conserved cysteine- and histidine-rich structure of…

      A protein with three LIM domains (a conserved cysteine- and histidine-rich structure of two adjacent zinc fingers) at the C terminus that regulates protein phosphorylation.

      • Members of this LIM protein family expressed in muscle include muscle LIM protein (MLP), enigma, actinin-associated LIM protein (ALP), cypher, four and a half LIM-only protein FHL/SLIM, and heart LIM protein (HLP).
      • Yeast two-hybrid screening revealed that enigma binds to the insulin receptor (InsR) internalization motif.
      • Enigma is a predominantly cytoplasmic protein that contains one PDZ domain at its N terminus and three LIM domains at its C terminus.
   5. 8

      The Talaud kingfisher, Todiramphus enigma.

      • As noted by Fry (1980), if both forms were shown to be resident and breeding on Talaud, enigma must be accorded specific status.
      • No conclusive proof of breeding by enigma was obtained, but during late September and October 1995, birds were paired and holding territory in central Karakelang.
      • The Talaud population enigma may be a race of H. chloris ( Eck 1978 ) or a distinct species ( White & Bruce 1986 ).
   6. 9

      Any of species of Oedaleonotus enigma of grasshoppers.

   7. 10

      Any of species of Heliothis enigma of rare moths.

      • Unlike any other species except virescens , the base of the male valve in enigma is slightly expanded and is entirely covered by hair insertions; unlike virescens, the base of the valve is not expanded into a large corema.
   8. 11

      A German device used during World War II to encode strategic messages.

The neighborhood