What's the difference between conundrum and enigma?

Conundrum


Definition:

  • (n.) A kind of riddle based upon some fanciful or fantastic resemblance between things quite unlike; a puzzling question, of which the answer is or involves a pun.
  • (n.) A question to which only a conjectural answer can be made.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The spinal form of MS is a clinical conundrum, the solution of which may yield many answers; to be certain that it is MS and not another disease causing the myelopathy is often difficult.
  • (2) KR: She was truly in a conundrum because without the app, she felt too worthless to try and fix it by installing an update.
  • (3) Ben Carson: inside the worldview of a political conundrum Read more One such priority, he said, was protecting the “religious freedom” of people who believe on religious grounds that marriage is “between one man and one woman”.
  • (4) Tony Goldstone , of the MRC Clinical Science Centre at Imperial College London, scanned the brains of people who skipped meals and found mechanisms at work that could help explain the conundrum.
  • (5) Energy policy's central conundrum today is how to go green at the lowest possible cost.
  • (6) A major constraint is the implementation conundrum.
  • (7) On the road to 2015, all political parties will need to tackle this conundrum if there is going to be a seismic shift away from traditional thinking about how health and social care are delivered.
  • (8) Needless to say, BoKlok's brains have grappled with the conundrum.
  • (9) But the need to change and to integrate health and social care presents a huge conundrum for policymakers, given that such reforms remain "notoriously" controversial and unpopular with the public.
  • (10) These comparable characteristics may help explain a continuing conundrum in the responses to disorder literature: the loose coupling between crime and fear levels at the local level.
  • (11) To explore this conundrum, we need to start by looking at what happiness actually means.
  • (12) It is concluded that properly conducted cross-cultural research can yield results which can help to resolve the conundrum of depression and respond to the challenge which depression poses to the society, to public health authorities and to the individuals who suffer from it.
  • (13) The anser to this conundrum, that the kidney was sometimes the cause and sometimes the consequence of circulatory disease was suggested by Mahomed's discovery of essential hypertension but confirmation had to await the invention of a clinically useful sphygmomanometer.
  • (14) Impossible to count.” He added: “No one knows.” The city has spent years trying to resolve this conundrum.
  • (15) Newspapers in the US had never before had to deal with the conundrum of what to do with leaked documents that had been procured illegally by people not in official positions.
  • (16) Labour, which has yet to resolve its own testing conundrums, will have to confront these challenges one day too.
  • (17) The British government has given its first official hint that it hopes the Irish external border will provide the solution to one of the most vexing conundrums of Brexit: how to pull up the immigration drawbridge without installing a “hard border” of customs posts and passport checks between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
  • (18) That’s the conundrum.” In a statement on Wednesday, Farron said the time had come for a deputy leader, given the party had elected a number of new women MPs when only men were elected in 2015.
  • (19) As the election haze clears, Trump’s China conundrum will become clear | Jonathan Fenby Read more That’s Trump’s first contribution to a Pacific agenda: an increase in South Koreans and Japanese who believe they should be nuclear-armed because American cannot be relied on, especially with North Korea fine-tuning its missile capacity.
  • (20) As the election haze clears, Trump’s China conundrum will become clear | Jonathan Fenby Read more Zhang Xiangchen, China’s deputy international trade representative, also told a news conference in Washington on Wednesday that a broad consensus of academics, business people and government officials have concluded that China is not manipulating its yuan currency to gain an unfair trade advantage, as Trump has charged.

Enigma


Definition:

  • (n.) A dark, obscure, or inexplicable saying; a riddle; a statement, the hidden meaning of which is to be discovered or guessed.
  • (n.) An action, mode of action, or thing, which cannot be satisfactorily explained; a puzzle; as, his conduct is an enigma.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The nature of the putative autoantigen in Graves' ophthalmopathy (Go) remains an enigma but the sequence similarity between thyroglobulin (Tg) and acetylcholinesterase (ACHE) provides a rationale for epitopes which are common to the thyroid gland and the eye orbit.
  • (2) The role of growth hormone (GH) and the related placental lactogens in implantation and subsequent embryonic and fetal development is an enigma.
  • (3) The exact association between psoriasis and arthritis remains an enigma.
  • (4) And then there is the great enigma of that involuntary separation inflicted by the death of those without whom we would never have wanted to live.
  • (5) An apparent enigma during platelet aggregation is that increased glycogenolysis occurs despite a fall in cyclic AMP levels; Activation by a classical cascade is therefore unlikely, and an alternative stimulus for phosphorylase a formation was sought.
  • (6) This triad is currently an enigma in the field of internal medicine.
  • (7) Rectal carcinoma remains an enigma to surgical and medical oncologists.
  • (8) Most of the known central actions of angiotensin II, for example the regulation of blood pressure and of electrolyte and water balance, seem to be mediated by the AT1 receptor, while the role of the AT2 receptor is still an enigma.
  • (9) What they say "You are an enigma wrapped in a riddle nestled in a sesame seed bun of mystery" – Stephen Colbert
  • (10) We believe that the "missing pathway" for factor XI activation remains an enigma that warrants further investigation.
  • (11) He, of course, disclaimed his commitment, telling an American admirer that he was "a person who prefers life to art, and who knows it is a far finer thing to be in love…" The record of his creativity suggests the opposite, only adding to the aura of enigma that still surrounds him.
  • (12) Against this background the present study was performed, and it has been shown that the resolution to the enigma is that there are two different populations of bipolar cells in the rat visual cortex.
  • (13) The biologic background to the clinical behavior of these metastasizing tumors remains an enigma.
  • (14) The author argues that the similarity of the Bushman trance state, kia and that of drug-induced altered states of consciousness has been paid too little attention in the research, and that an enigma currently exists with regard to the degree to which plant drugs may have influenced the !Kung trance phenomenon and healing beliefs.
  • (15) In many ways the problem of diaphragmatic hernia is as much of an enigma to today's physician-scientist as it was to Bochdalek in the nineteenth century.
  • (16) The treatment of keloids continues to be an enigma to the surgeon and the patient as well.
  • (17) And we need to declare war on them.” The rhetoric injected renewed urgency into the effort to unlock the enigma of a couple who had lived quietly and privately with their six-month-old daughter.
  • (18) Facial palsy is a distressing nonfatal disorder that creates an emotional crisis for the patient and often a therapeutic enigma for the physician.
  • (19) The function of the third one called the tissue type is still an enigma.
  • (20) A variety of pharmacologic manipulations were employed to help solve this enigma.