How to Use puzzle over in a Sentence

puzzle over

verb
  • Residents have puzzled over why so much of their town was burned.
    — Senior Editor, Los Angeles Times, 6 Mar. 2026
  • The hunt has come up short, leaving physicists puzzling over what to do next.
    — Quanta Magazine, 8 Apr. 2026
  • At the time, economists were puzzling over a big question about how to measure cost of living.
    — Literary Hub, 8 Apr. 2026
  • This became the noise’s nickname as scientists puzzled over what could have produced it.
    — Andrew Coletti, Popular Science, 26 Mar. 2026
  • The bigger question scientists are puzzling over, though, is why does the mystery bird exist?
    — Amanda Schupak, CNN Money, 29 Sep. 2025
  • Then my colleague in the gardening business was puzzled over the notion of what might be worth sacrificing to make room.
    — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 31 May 2026
  • Aristotle, Spinoza, and Descartes puzzled over problems that still stump philosophers.
    — Big Think, 28 Oct. 2025
  • Clark and an electrician puzzle over unexplained power outages and new breakers that have formed on the circuit board.
    — Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 27 May 2026
  • So are the hurdles of getting the water out and puzzling over who owns it, who uses it and how to extract it without undue harm to nature.
    — Rodrique Ngowi, Fortune, 7 Sep. 2025
  • Pieces easily slide into place so shoppers don’t have to puzzle over an assembly manual.
    — Erika Owen, Architectural Digest, 13 Mar. 2026
  • Raeleah Heusner, a sophomore, puzzles over a small copy of Abraham Lincoln's speeches.
    — Cory Turner, NPR, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Faith amid the dip While some churchgoers puzzle over what to make of crypto, Renee has found that at least one pulpit is welcoming.
    — Bracey Harris, NBC news, 28 Mar. 2026
  • For years, investigators puzzled over how the couple and their children could vanish entirely.
    — Mason Leath, ABC News, 3 Oct. 2025
  • More than a quarter of a century before, physicists had been puzzling over why energy appeared to be lost during a radioactive process called beta decay.
    — Simon Frantz, Quanta Magazine, 24 June 2026
  • More deeply, San Diego’s Muslims have been puzzling over the roots of the hatred that sent two young men into a holy place with the intent to commit mass murder.
    — Roxana Popescu, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 May 2026
  • For years scientists have puzzled over the elusive day-to-night look, but Lily Collins may have just solved that particular mystery, at least for travelers.
    — Elizabeth Logan, Glamour, 15 Dec. 2025
  • Historians have long puzzled over Armijo’s journal, trying to decipher the particulars of his route.
    — Mike Bezemek, Outside, 29 Oct. 2025
  • Yet the political conversation continues to center white women as the decisive variable — the persuadable, the winnable, the ones whose votes need to be courted and earned and puzzled over.
    — Maia Niguel Hoskin, Forbes.com, 30 June 2026
  • Scientists are still puzzling over why the bumblebee catfish attempted the steep climb, though the leading theory points to upstream migration for reproduction.
    — Bojan Stojkovski, Interesting Engineering, 17 Aug. 2025
  • But the seismic activity fizzled out and nothing else happened, leaving volcanologists and seismologists to puzzle over the episode.
    — Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, 23 Apr. 2026
  • Scientists have been puzzling over the virus for decades, but many aspects of its rapid evolution and transmission patterns, as well as the ways in which our bodies defend against it, remain frustratingly mysterious.
    — Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 10 Jan. 2026
  • Why the untelegenic Sullivan succeeded in television is a question McLuhanite media scholars have long puzzled over.
    — Thomas Doherty, HollywoodReporter, 15 Aug. 2025
  • Commentators puzzled over why Democrats failed to match Republicans toe to toe by leaning on popular online creators like Parnas to convey their message.
    — Jay Stahl, USA Today, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Our two Yank interlopers spend some time puzzling over what that supernatural secret might be, before all is revealed in a burst of fantastical exposition toward the end of Act 1.
    — Chris Willman, Variety, 27 May 2026
  • When Lowell was an infant, the ship’s crew puzzled over how to feed her; while docked at Norfolk Island, one sailor brought a goat on board, nicknamed it Wet Nurse, and fed its milk to Lowell for months.
    — Michael Waters, New Yorker, 3 Jan. 2026
  • At four remote sites near Saudi Arabia’s Nefud Desert, researchers are puzzling over 130 life-sized animal images emblazoned on rocky outcrops.
    — Martin J. Kernan, Scientific American, 30 Sep. 2025
  • But as the evidence mounts, scientists continue to puzzle over the pleasant surprise—how are vaccines that target specific pathogens inadvertently shielding our minds from deterioration?
    — Beth Mole, ArsTechnica, 15 May 2026
  • Astronomers have long puzzled over the apparent lack of luminous red supergiant stars in pre-explosion images, even though models predict that these stars should dominate the population of core-collapse supernova progenitors.
    — Sharmila Kuthunur, Space.com, 8 Oct. 2025
  • But perhaps judged by the standards of a more family-friendly, beginner take on the murder mystery, the story’s fairly obvious outcome is a bit more understandable, providing a gentle mystery that all audiences can lightly puzzle over.
    — Wilson Chapman, IndieWire, 8 May 2026
  • Sophisticated software can present sensor information comprehensibly, allowing pilots to make combat decisions rather than puzzle over readings.
    — Tom Chivers, semafor.com, 25 Feb. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'puzzle over.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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