puzzling out
Working it through
Puzzling out means working through something confusing or mysterious until you understand it.
The phrase suggests patient effort—turning a problem over, examining pieces, making connections: She spent hours puzzling out the meaning of the ancient inscription.
You puzzle out codes, motives, instructions, or anything that doesn't yield its meaning immediately.
- rebusPictures encoding phrases
- enigmaSomething hard to fathom
- brain teaserProblem requiring clever thought
- conundrumPerplexing problem or question
- deductionConclusion from premises
reasoning · curiosity · satisfaction · frustration · intrigue · determination · excitement · hypothesis testing · relief · dissection · trial-and-error · figure it out · reverse engineering · lateral thinking · mental gymnastics · perseverance · inference · piecing together
- creatingcreating, inventing, producing, generating, making
- code-breaking verbsdecrypting, deciphering, cracking, unscrambling, solving
puzzling outspelling out
Stating something explicitly
laying out · elucidating · clarifying · explicating · breaking down
puzzle, puzzling, puzzled, puzzles, puzzler, puzzlement, outing, outings, outermost