DILEMMA

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does dilemma mean? 

• DILEMMA (noun)
  The noun DILEMMA has 1 sense:

1. state of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options

  Familiarity information: DILEMMA used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DILEMMA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

State of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

dilemma; quandary

Hypernyms ("dilemma" is a kind of...):

perplexity (trouble or confusion resulting from complexity)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dilemma"):

double bind ((psychology) an unresolvable dilemma; situation in which a person receives contradictory messages from a person who is very powerful)

 Context examples 

Knowing why you hesitated to commit may help you unlock your dilemma about what you need to do next.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

The dilemma had me between his horns.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

In a few hours the examination would commence, and he was still in the dilemma between making the facts public and allowing the culprit to compete for the valuable scholarship.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If you will advise me, knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it will be best to exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add another friendly obligation to the many you have already rendered me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It is, however, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement and so give a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You see my dilemma.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)