Which of the words avail, oval, valid, mail continues the sequence dig, minim, militia, sieve, ave?

series/roman.numeral.letters New

New entry, edited from material collected for the archive and not yet in a released version.

Problem

Which of the words avail, oval, valid, mail continues the sequence
dig, minim, militia, sieve, ave?

Word sequence:

dig    minim       militia      sieve     ave

Which of the following words continues the sequence?

avail    oval    valid     mail

-- Phillip Carter, as quoted by David Spero <mrrogers@igc.apc.org>,
   August 1996

[ Editor: the first sentence is the editor's summary. ]

Show solution

The odd letters in each word considered as Roman numerals are:

i ii iii iv v

making the next one in the sequence "vi" from "avail."

-- Peter Suzman <suzman@netcom.com>

This should of course have been EVEN letters.

-- Peter Suzman <suzman@netcom.com>, correcting his posting above