the.com/riddle
a question wearing a disguise, daring your brain to recognize the answer hiding in plain sight
means a puzzle phrased as a tricky question or statement, designed so the answer is concealed and must be cleverly worked out.
from From Old English 'rǣdan,' to interpret or counsel — the same root that gives us 'read.' A riddle was literally a thing to be read, in the old sense of figured out. (The other 'riddle,' a coarse sieve, is a separate word from Old English 'hriddel'; the two only sound alike, though there's a tempting overlap in the idea of sifting for meaning.)
- sphinx stakes
- Oedipus solved one; losers got eaten alive
- ancient sport
- Babylonians scratched riddles into clay 4,000 years ago
- viking duel
- Odin won contests by asking unanswerable questions
- legal weapon
- Anglo-Saxon riddles doubled as bawdy double-entendres
- hobbit lore
- Bilbo and Gollum gambled their lives on riddles
bilbo's riddle game — the hobbit (1937): bilbo and gollum exchange riddles in tolkien's novel, including 'what have i got in my pocket?'
samson's riddle — bible, judges 14: 'out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet' — about a lion and honeycomb