enigma

name

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

noun

Etymology: From Latin aenigma (“riddle”), being derived itself from the Ancient Greek verbal noun αἴνιγμα (aínigma, “dark saying, speaking in riddles”).

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;”

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.”

3. Riddles and puzzles, collectively.

   “From the beginning, readers of The Enigma of Arrival are likely to feel surrounded by enigma and puzzle.”

   “These examples show that two processes are tested in enigma - logic and intuition. It is intuition that discovers the specific idea that may be called the “ wisdom ” of a given riddle, whereas logic is confounded by enigma and can only produce inadequate interpretations.”

4. 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 .”

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

   “But in a sense it is probably close to this book— a series of juxtaposed splinters of meaning, which perhaps once in ten million times will come out as a piece of interpretable prose, with the black pieces intervening, and possibly one could look at this as a one-in-ten million exercise in enigma perhaps meaning something.”

   “Isidore, on the other hand, while beginning with the traditional classification, proceeds to distinguish between allegory and enigma in a way that reveals a more unusual perception: There is this difference, however, between allegory and enigma, that the force of allegory is twofold, and figuratively indicates a second meaning behind the first, while in enigma it is only the meaning that is dark, and adumbrated by means of images.”

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.”

7. 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.”

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.”

9. Any of species of Oedaleonotus enigma of grasshoppers.

   “The principal species involved were the migratory grasshopper, Melanoplus sanguinipes (Fab.); the Packard grasshopper, Melanoplus packardii Scudd.; the clearwinged grasshopper, Camnula pellucida (Scudd.); and the Enigma Oedaleonotus enigma Scudd.”

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.”