riddle, puzzling question, specifically one that consists of a fanciful description or definition of something to be guessed. A famous riddle was asked by the Sphinx: "What goes on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, on three at night?" Oedipus guessed the answer correctly: "Man—in infancy he crawls, at his prime he walks, in age he leans on a staff." Samson's riddle is also famous: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness" (Judges 14.14). It refers to a lion he had just killed, on which he saw bees and honey; he ate some of the lion and the honey. Punning riddles are common, as: "When is a door not a door?" The answer is, "When it's ajar." There is comparatively little riddle literature, but riddles do figure prominently in Old English. The Exeter Book contains many English verse riddles of uncertain date; they vary considerably in matter. There are also many riddles in Latin hexameters dating from Anglo-Saxon England.

Hoffa, James Riddle, 1913-75?, U.S. labor leader, b. Brazil, Indiana. As a young warehouseman he organized (1932) a union that was admitted two years later into the Teamsters Union. Hoffa rose swiftly in the Teamsters, in 1952 becoming international vice president and in 1957 succeeding Dave Beck as president. Evidence of corruption in the union revealed by a Senate investigating committee in 1957 led to the expulsion from the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations of the Teamsters, which had been the federation's largest affiliate. Moreover, Hoffa was forced to accept a board of monitors to supervise his activities as Teamsters president.

Despite efforts from outside the union to remove him, Hoffa was reelected president by acclamation in 1961. In 1962 a federal grand jury indicted him for accepting illegal payments from a Detroit trucking company; the case ended in a mistrial. Hoffa's power continued to grow, and by 1964 he was able to effect the trucking industry's first national contract. In the same year, however, he was convicted of jury tampering and of fraud in handling the union benefits fund, and was sentenced to a 13-year prison term. After all appeals had been exhausted, Hoffa began (1967) serving his sentence, but he retained the Teamster presidency until 1971, when he resigned. In the same year, President Nixon commuted Hoffa's sentence, with the parole provision that he not engage in union activity until 1980. After his release, Hoffa promoted prison reform. He disappeared in 1975 and is widely assumed to have been murdered.

His son James Philip Hoffa, 1941-, b. Detroit, is a labor lawyer. He was narrowly defeated when he ran for the Teamster's presidency in 1996 but won the post in a 1998 contest and retained it in 2001..

Deliberately enigmatic or ambiguous question requiring a thoughtful and often witty answer. The riddle is a form of guessing game that has been a part of the folklore of most cultures from ancient times. Western scholars generally recognize two main kinds of riddle: the descriptive riddle, usually describing an animal, person, plant, or object in an intentionally enigmatic manner (thus an egg is “a little white house without door or window”); and the shrewd or witty question. A classical Greek example of the latter type is “What is the strongest of all things?”—“Love: iron is strong, but the blacksmith is stronger, and love can subdue the blacksmith.”

Learn more about riddle with a free trial on Britannica.com.

orig. James Riddle Hoffa

(born Feb. 14, 1913, Brazil, Ind., U.S.—disappeared July 30, 1975, Bloomfield Hills, near Detroit, Mich.) U.S. labour leader. He moved with his family to Detroit in 1924, left school at 14, and began work as a stockboy and warehouseman. He became a labour organizer in the 1930s, rising in the Teamsters Union during the next two decades until he reached the office of president, which he held from 1957 to 1971. Known throughout the trucking industry as a tough bargainer, he played a key role in forging the first national freight-hauling agreement and helped make the Teamsters the largest labour union in the U.S. Long associated with underworld figures, he was sent to prison in 1967 for jury tampering, fraud, and conspiracy; his sentence was commuted by Pres. Richard Nixon in 1971. In 1975 he disappeared from a restaurant near Detroit; he is believed to have been murdered to prevent his retaking control of the union. His son, James Riddle Hoffa, Jr. (b. 1941), was elected president of the Teamsters in 1999.

Learn more about Hoffa, Jimmy with a free trial on Britannica.com.