poselet

The origin of 'puzzle' is genuinely uncertain. It appeared in English around 1595 as a verb meaning to bewilder or confuse. One theory connects it to the Middle English poselet (confused, bewildered), possibly from Old French aposer or opposer (to question, to pose a problem). Another traces it to a frequentative of 'pose' — to pose questions repeatedly until someone is confused. The honest answer is that nobody is sure. The word arrived without clear luggage.

The noun 'puzzle' — a problem designed to be solved for entertainment — appeared in the mid-seventeenth century. The first jigsaw puzzle was created around 1760 by John Spilsbury, a London mapmaker who mounted a map on wood and cut along the national borders. He called them 'dissected maps' and sold them as educational tools. The word 'puzzle' attached to these objects later.

The nineteenth century exploded with puzzles. Crossword puzzles appeared in their modern form in 1913, when Arthur Wynne published one in the New York World. Rubik's Cube was invented in 1974 by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian architecture professor. Sudoku, despite its Japanese name, was designed by Howard Garns, an American, in 1979 and popularized by the Japanese publisher Nikoli. Each was a different kind of puzzle; the word stretched to fit them all.

The word now covers an enormous range: jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, logic puzzles, mechanical puzzles, mathematical puzzles, and the figurative 'puzzle' of any unsolved problem. Scientists puzzle over data. Detectives puzzle over clues. The word kept its original meaning — to be confused, to work at confusion — while also naming the objects that create that confusion deliberately.