mys ‧ te ‧ ri ‧ ous /mɪˈstɪəriəs $ -ˈstɪr-/ BrE AmE adjective
1 . mysterious events or situations are difficult to explain or understand:
The police are investigating the mysterious deaths of children at the hospital.
Benson later disappeared in mysterious circumstances.
There’s something mysterious going on.
2 . a mysterious person is someone who you know very little about and who seems strange or interesting SYN enigmatic :
I decided to find out more about my mysterious new neighbour.
a mysterious stranger
3 . someone who behaves in a mysterious way says very little about what they are doing SYN secretive
mysterious about
Helen’s being very mysterious about her plans.
She hid her thoughts behind a mysterious smile.
—mysteriously adverb :
Jackson had mysteriously disappeared.
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THESAURUS
▪ mysterious difficult to explain or understand, and often strange or slightly frightening:
the mysterious disappearance of ships in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle
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What’s that mysterious noise?
▪ puzzling difficult to explain or understand:
At first this must seem a puzzling question.
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I found her attitude deeply puzzling.
▪ baffling impossible to understand, so that you feel very confused:
It was a baffling case.
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Like many people, I find theroretical physics baffling.
▪ inexplicable formal impossible to explain:
For some inexplicable reason her mind went completely blank.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.