riddling
riddling is the present participle and gerund of riddle.
Meaning of riddle
Verb (1)
riddle (third-person singular simple present riddles, present participle riddling, simple past and past participle riddled)
- To speak ambiguously or enigmatically.
- To solve, answer, or explicate a riddle or question.
- Riddle me this.
- Synonyms:
- decipher, puzzle out, unriddle, absolve, get to the bottom of, iron out, meliorate, ravel, reason out, resolve
Verb (2)
riddle (third-person singular simple present riddles, present participle riddling, simple past and past participle riddled)
- To put something through a riddle or sieve; to sieve; to sift.
- You have to riddle the gravel before you lay it on the road.
- To fill with holes like a riddle.
- The shots from his gun began to riddle the targets.
- To fill or spread throughout; to pervade (with something destructive or weakening).
- Your argument is riddled with errors.
- Synonyms:
- litter
Verb (3)
riddle (third-person singular simple present riddles, present participle riddling, simple past and past participle riddled)
- To plait.
Noun (1)
riddling (plural riddlings)
- The posing or solving of a riddle.
- Hence the laughter of ridicule, whether spontaneous or incited by words, and hence too the laughter of wit, which has an intermediate ancestry in such mental tussles or riddlings as may at one time have taken the place of more savage physical strife.2015, W. K. Wimsatt, Hateful Contraries: Studies in Literature and Criticism, page 94
Noun (2)
riddling (plural riddlings)
- Material removed by riddling, or sieving.
- The good grain is riddled by hand into a heap at a convenient part of the barn, and the riddlings are thrown among the stuff which descends to the floor through the other spout.1832, The Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, volume 3, page 989
Adjective
riddling (comparative more riddling, superlative most riddling)
- Enfilled with or spread throughout; permeating; pervading.
- O perplex'd diſcompoſition, O ridling diſtemper, O miſerable condition of Man.1624, John Donne, “1. Meditation”, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for Thomas Iones, →OCLC, page 8
Forms of riddling
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | riddlings |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more riddling |
| superlative | most riddling |
Origin of riddling
From Middle English redel, redels, from Old English rǣdels, rǣdelse (“counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle”). More at riddle.
From Middle English riddil, ridelle (“sieve”). More at riddle.
From Middle English ridlen. More at riddle.
Questions about riddling
- What does riddling mean?
- Riddling means the posing or solving of a riddle.
- What is riddling the present participle and gerund of?
- Riddling is the present participle and gerund of riddle.
- What part of speech is riddling?
- Riddling can be a noun or an adjective.
- What is the plural of riddling?
- The plural of riddling is riddlings.
Words near riddling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: riddling (page history and authors); riddle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “riddling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/riddling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.