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PUZZLE

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 675 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PUZZLE , a perplexing question, particularly a See also:

mechanical See also:toy or other See also:device involving some constructional problem, to be solved by the exercise of See also:patience or ingenuity. Some of the See also:oldest mechanical puzzles are those of the See also:Chinese, one of the most See also:familiar being that known as the tangram (chi ch'iao t'ue), which consists of a square of See also:wood or other material cut into five triangles, of different sizes, a small square and a See also:lozenge, which can be so placed as to See also:form over 300 different figures. This puzzle is sometimes made of See also:ivory carved with the delicate workmanship for which the Chinese craftsmen are renowned, and is enclosed in a carved See also:box. Another well-known puzzle is known as the " Chinese rings," consisting of a See also:series of rings See also:running linked together on a See also:bar, the problem being to take them off the bar and replace them. The commonest of all puzzles are coloured maps, pictures (" See also:jig-saw ") or designs, dissected into numerous variously shaped pieces, to be fitted together to form the See also:complete See also:design. A See also:great number of puzzles are based on mathematical principles, such as the " fifteen puzzle," the " railway shunting puzzle," and the like. See W. W. Rouse See also:Ball, Mathematical Recreations and Amusements (1892). The See also:etymology of the word " puzzle " is disputed. It has been usual to consider that the verb, which appears first at the end of the 16th See also:century, is derived from the substantive, and that this is an aphetic form of " apposal " or " opposal " i.e. opposition, hence a question for See also:solution, cf. See also:Lydgate, Fall of Princes, quoted by See also:Skeat (Etym.

See also:

Diet. 1898). The New See also:English See also:Dictionary, however, takes it as ciear from the See also:chronological See also:evidence and sense-development that the substantive is derived from the verb, which, in its earliest examples, means to put in embarrassing material circumstances, to bewilder, to perplex. This seems against making " to puzzle " a derivative of " to pose," i.e. " oppose," to examine by putting questions. Some connexion may be found with a much earlier word " poselet," confused, bewildered, which does not occur later than the end of the 14th century.

End of Article: PUZZLE

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