Chinese puzzle

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Etymology

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Noun

Chinese puzzle (plural Chinese puzzles)

1. A kind of puzzle made of interlocking pieces that must be disassembled and reassembled.
   • 1947, Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, page 343:

     The Consul carried another drink with Yvonne’s letters into an inner room, one of the boxes in the Chinese puzzle.

2. (figurative, idiomatic) A senseless situation.