mystery

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Something that is hard or impossible to understand or explain.

   How the keys ended up in the freezer is a complete mystery.

2. 2
   noun

   A person or thing with a puzzling or unknown nature.

   Even after years together, he remains a mystery to me.

3. 3
   noun

   A story, book, or film about solving a crime or puzzle.

   She loves reading murder mysteries on holiday.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Mystery comes from Greek mustērion, a term for secret religious ceremonies open only to initiates and related to mystic and mystify. Its earliest English uses were religious; it later broadened to mean something beyond human understanding and then an ordinary puzzle or conundrum.

From Middle English mysterie, from Anglo-Norman misterie (Old French mistere), from Latin mysterium, from Ancient Greek μυστήριον (mustḗrion, “a mystery, a secret, a secret rite”), from μύστης (mústēs, “initiated one”), from μυέω (muéō, “to initiate”), from μύω (múō, “to shut”). Displaced native Old English ġerȳne.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary