puzzle over

verb

puzzled over; puzzling over; puzzles over
: to think or worry for a long time about (something)
He's been puzzling over what went wrong.

Examples of puzzle over in a Sentence

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As Sophie Lee reported in an essay for Cultured yesterday, the literary world is still puzzling over what the next generation of [straight…] men want from a novel in 2026. — Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 8 Oct. 2026 Thursday is The New York Times’s favorite day of the week to publish crosswords with twists, surprises or extra layers of trickery to puzzle over. — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2026 Today, visitors can puzzle over a flat road called Mound Street in a square city called Circleville. — Daniel Immerwahr, New Yorker, 28 Sep. 2026 The second mystery is the puzzle over how exactly type Ia supernova explosions detonate. — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 11 Sep. 2026 See All Example Sentences for puzzle over

Rhymes for puzzle over

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Browse Nearby Words

puzzle out
puzzle over
puzzlepated
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Cite this Entry

“Puzzle over.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/puzzle%20over. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

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