ænigmata

alternative enigmata

1. pluralplural of ænigma

   1830, Robert Southey, Esq., LL.D., The Pilgrim’s Progress, with a Life of John Bunyan; quoted in:

   5 more examples

   1807, The History of the Anglo-Saxons, book XII, page 346; also later reprinted verbatim & literatim in:

   These ænigmata consist of twenty tetrastica, or stanzas of four lines, on various subjects ; as the earth, the wind, clouds, nature, the rainbow, the moon, fortune, salt, the nettle and such like — of fourteen pentasticha of five lines, of thirteen hexasticha of six lines each, nineteen stanzas of seven lines, ten of eight lines, eleven of nine lines, and thirteen of ten lines each.

   1839, Sharon Turner, The History of England: From the Earliest Period to the Death of Elizabeth, book IX, page 374

   Intermixed with these ænigmata, we find towards the latter part of the volume other poems, religious and miscellaneous.

   1826, John Josias Conybeare, Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, page 213

   In some cases, the parable possesses the interest of the riddle itself ; the examination and solution of which are so interesting to the human intellect, that the history and religious doctrines of ancient nations were often at once preserved and disguised in the form of such ænigmata.

   1830, The Quarterly Review, article V, page 486

   It is sufficiently obvious, that the first of these ænigmata relates to the Chess-Knight, the second to the Chess-Queen, and the last to the Chess-Pawn ; but the third receives unusual illustration by a view of the Pawns which form part of the set discovered in the Isle of Lewis, which present to us the octagonal shape alluded to by Gest ; and this adds a collateral proof in support of their Northern manufacture.

   1841, Chess Player’s Chronicle, page 272

   Synonyms: ænigmas