conundrum
pronunciation
How to pronounce conundrum in British English:
UK 
How to pronounce conundrum in American English:
US
Word Origin
- conundrum
- conundrum: [16] Conundrum originally appeared in all manner of weird and wonderful guises – conimbrum, conuncrum, quonundrum, connunder, etc – before settling down to conundrum in the late 18th century. It bears all the marks of one of the rather heavy-handed quasi-Latin joke words beloved of scholars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a mid-17thcentury commentator attributed it to Oxford university. At first it meant ‘whim’ and then ‘pun’; the current sense ‘puzzling problem’ did not develop until the end of the 18th century.
- conundrum (n.)
- 1590s, Oxford University slang for "pedant," also "whim," etc., later (1790) "riddle, puzzle." Also spelled quonundrum. The sort of ponderous pseudo-Latin word that was once the height of humor in learned circles.
Example
- 1. Indeed , tackling the question provokes a conundrum .
- 2. The conundrum is not limited to leveraged lending institutions .
- 3. China 's fund managers are pondering an investor conundrum .
- 4. This presents china with a conundrum .
- 5. But therein lies another conundrum .