November 30th, 2011

A number of people seemed to enjoy the word puzzle I posted earlier today. I therefore post for your amusement 4 other words to be trimmed down to nothing letter by letter — same rules as the original post.

Faithful reader Katja deserves credit for the first three. To solve each of hers I had to look up a word so I have added a hint revealing what that word meant in case you want some help. The fourth one is my own.

Enjoy.

1. LACERATED

Hint: The word I had to look up means “needle-shaped”

2. DEFLATION

Hint: The word I had to look up means “conveyance”

3. UNPRAISED

Hint: The word I had to look up means “branch or twig”

4. STRINGIER

Even though this has 9 letters the comprised words are common enough that you should not need a hint.

12 Responses to “Lunchtime Diversion, Reprise”

  1. Dan says:

    STRINGIER
    STRINGER (or STINGIER)
    STINGER
    SINGER
    SINGE
    SING (or SINE)
    SIN
    IN
    I

  2. ferd says:

    LACERATED
    LACERATE
    ACERATE
    CERATE
    CRATE
    RATE
    RAT
    AT
    A

  3. J says:

    UNPRAISED
    UPRAISED
    PRAISED
    PRISED
    PRIED
    PIED
    PIE
    PI
    I

    • Keith Humphreys says:

      I wish I’d thought of that route because I wouldn’t have needed to use a weird word that I had to look up. Well done.

  4. J says:

    DEFLATION
    DELATION
    ELATION
    LATION
    LATIN
    LAIN
    LAN
    AN
    A
    …and the word you looked up was LATION, right?

  5. J says:

    This is fun. Thanks for a little entertainment to brighten my day.

  6. Marcus says:

    Here are a few generated from the Scrabble Tournament Word List: COMPLECTING, PARCHEESIS, INSOLATING, TWITCHIEST, MACERATER, MADRASSAHS, LINGULATE.

    • Keith Humphreys says:

      WOW — I will get out ye olde Scrabble dictionary and give these a go. Thanks.

      • Katja says:

        Fascinating. I had no idea that such word lists existed. I generated my words from (ahem) /usr/share/dict/words (and then had to throw out a bunch because several entries in that file are obviously non-words).