2
general::
mysterious
difficult to explain or understand, and often strange or slightly frightening:
• the mysterious disappearance of ships in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle • What’s that mysterious noise?
puzzling
difficult to explain or understand:
• At first this must seem a puzzling question. • I found her attitude deeply puzzling.
baffling
impossible to understand, so that you feel very confused:
• It was a baffling case. • Like many people, I find theroretical physics baffling.
inexplicable
formal impossible to explain:
• For some inexplicable reason her mind went completely blank. • Some things in life are inexplicable.
enigmatic
formal mysterious and difficult to understand, but also often attractive or interesting – used especially about people, their expressions, or things they say:
• She gave him an enigmatic smile. • an enigmatic remark
cryptic
formal having a meaning that is difficult to understand, and is not expressed in a clear direct way – used especially about things that people say or write:
• I got a rather cryptic message from him. • cryptic comments
be a mystery
if something is a mystery, you cannot understand how or why it happens:
• Four years later, his death remains a complete mystery. • It’s all a mystery to me.
be shrouded/veiled in mystery
if an event or a situation, especially one that happened a long time ago, is shrouded in mystery, it is mysterious because no one knows exactly what happened:
• Stone age civilization, veiled in mystery as it is, has provided the greatest challenge to historians.
Longman-Thesaurus