Today we shed light into the great unknown as we compare the nouns mystery and enigma. Mystery is the more general of the two terms, referring to anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained. It can also refer to any person or thing that arouses curiosity or speculation for their obscure qualities. Enigma is more specific: it entered English in the 16th century as a word for a riddle. Its meaning has expanded, but the theme of puzzles or puzzlement is still central to how we use it today. Any puzzling or inexplicable occurrence might be called an enigma as well as a person of puzzling or contradictory character.

The adjective careful is a general term that describes people who take pains in their work (a careful typist), or things done or performed with accuracy or caution (careful research). Meticulous describes people that are not just careful, but extremely attentive to the minute details of a project or task. In other words, someone who is meticulous sweats the small stuff! Reflecting its Latin roots, meticulous entered English meaning “fearful.” It came to describe people who were scrupulous to a fault. Nowadays, meticulous is mostly favorable, describing work that is well done or people that are reliably and impressively thorough—though it does still carry a whiff of obsessive desire to avoid error.

The key idea of the word embodiment is packed right into the middle of the term itself: body. This noun is used to talk about a person or thing that embodies a principle or idea, or, put another way, a material (bodily) form of something immaterial (abstract). The synonym epitome is used of a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class. This term moves us closer to the notion of an ideal or perfect example of something, and skews positive (epitome of luxury, epitome of elegance), though both terms are found with some regularity in discussion of evil (embodiment of evil, epitome of evil).