Taxonomy of Wordplay | |
Part of The rec.puzzles Archive · Language: English. Have a puzzle question? Ask the rec.puzzles Oracle. | |
|
Contents | next: Spelling: Vowels
SpellingStructureEntire Wordsesquipedalian word (long word), longest [1-33,4-56,80,5-82,7-6,11-166,174,12-38,13-117,151,15-234,16-24,93,17-30,115,20-37,182,214,21-26,22-205,30-273,31-42,153,32-224,35-284]
see "Longest Word" article
palindrome (same word when letters are reversed) [18-6]
a. longest [3-5,9-49,11-173]
common word: malayalam (9)
uncommon word: nepparterrestaalplaatserretrappen (33)
b. beginning with each letter [L6,286,11-210,12-93,23-48,33-67,104]
see list Longest Palindrome Beginning with Each Letter
c. centered on each letter [4-133,210,5-6,15-50,208,16-22,25-162,28-52]
see list Longest Palindrome Centered on Each Letter
d. near-palindrome (fails to be a palindrome by one letter), longest [42-257,42-14]
e.g. catabatic (9)
e.g. dereddened (10)
e.g. cibophobic (10)
e. onion palindrome (every successive terminal elision is a palindrome), longest [45-103]
f. bigram-unit palindrome (reads the same backward taking letter pairs as units) [30-222]
common word: tomato
common word: eraser
e.g. didi
g. partitioned palindrome (word divides into consecutive palindromic segments) [35-213,36-298]
common word: Agamemnon
e.g. Iliana
h. palindromic sentence or verse (letter-unit palindrome of several words), longest
[7-156,8-22,183,30-263,31-6,83,140,156,221,32-38,100,143,158,232,257,316,33-154,274,34-10,70,154,181,250,35-3,52,69,76,
144,152,36-9,128,209,37-74,155,199,216,245,316,38-75,163,235,291,39-36,134,147,40-164,338,42-119,139,43-20,29,143,
44-252,TJ3-15,TJ3-32,TJ4-47,TJ6-12,TJ7-30,TJ8-8,IN1-39,IN1-41,IN2-26,WW51.3-6,WW51.4-28,WW52.1-46,WW52.1-83,WW52.2-21,
WW52.2-56,WW53.4-9,WW53.4-29]
e.g. Live was I ere I saw evil
e.g. Too hot to hoot
e.g. Sun, eve, Venus
i. infinitely extendable palindrome (palindromic sentence lengthened without limit by repeating a unit) [13-175]
e.g. Leon was a foe of a foe of ... a foe of Asa W. Noel
ii. palindromic charade sentence (two charade sentences, the second reading the first backward with word breaks
moved) [10-79,208,49-208,293]
iii. cheater's palindrome (palindromic sentence justified by invented, obscure or non-words, often with a
mock-scholarly gloss) [23-233,26-209,27-83,27-146,27-253]
e.g. Samorael bats at times emit tastable aromas
e.g. Blue rum, sir, is mureulb
iv. full-name palindrome (palindrome built on the reversed full name of a real person) [23-88]
e.g. Dian, I am reviled, I turn, I dump Martin Gardner, I rend rag 'n' I tramp mud...
v. palindrome chestnut variation and themed palindrome set (variants of a famous palindrome by swapping in other
reversal pairs, open vs closed variation sets; palindromes using as many members of a set as possible, e.g.
state names) [45-167]
e.g. Stressed was I ere I saw desserts
e.g. Do not stint at nits to nod
vi. palindromic slide rule (sliding columns of palindromic word pairs that combine into thousands of palindromes)
[28-190]
e.g. sliding columns Regal/Pans/Snap/Lager combine into 10,000 palindromes
vii. palingroan (famous palindrome altered into a punning non-palindrome) [21-237]
e.g. A man, a plan, a canal - Suez!
e.g. Abel was I ere I saw Cain
viii. perfect or double palindrome (palindromic sentence built only from palindromic words and reversal pairs
balanced on the centre; double = palindromic words only) [28-231]
e.g. Did Hannah peep? Hannah did
e.g. Mma saw dad was Mma
ix. pilish palindrome (palindromic passage whose word lengths give the digits of pi) [49-104]
e.g. Rot! A gill? A kayak alligator! (3.14159)
x. RETEP verse (rhymed end-to-end palindromic verse: quatrains, palimericks, sonnets; letter-unit or word-unit)
[49-103,49-302,50-254,50-270,50-285]
e.g. palimericks by Falcone and Wike; Stephens' word-unit RETEP poems (1978)
xi. snowball palindrome (palindromic sentence whose successive words grow by one letter), longest [49-104]
e.g. A ma, Ron, apes paler, redder 'relapse' panorama (8 words, 1 to 8 letters)
i. word-unit palindrome (text that reads the same word by word in reverse) [20-250,30-11,33-13,34-39,35-92]
e.g. King, are you glad you are king?
e.g. Leaves fall ... fall leaves
i. pundrome (word-unit palindrome whose mirrored word pairs are homophones rather than identical) [25-101]
e.g. Shoo gnats off Nat's shoe
e.g. No eye sees the seas I know
j. line-unit palindrome (poem that reads with its lines in reverse order) [40-296,40-315,41-5,41-48]
e.g. Win Emmons' "Mary's Lamb": the poem's lines read in reverse order retell the story
k. even palindrome centred on each doubled letter (AA through ZZ) [15-50]
e.g. acca & keek & hajjah
e.g. snibbins & mallam
l. interlingual palindrome set (a word whose translations in several languages are palindromes) [4-241]
e.g. Czech bob = Hungarian bab (bean); Rumanian sos = Swedish sas (gravy)
m. palindrome pair (two words that together form a palindrome) [12-131]
common words: stop & pots
n. syllable-unit palindrome (reads the same with its syllables reversed) [8-232]
e.g. DONATOR / TOR-NA-DO; MARO / RO-MA
o. derived palindrome (word that becomes a palindrome when its first or last letter is moved to the other end, or part of a
letter is moved) [49-295,50-76]
e.g. ADD => DAD (last letter moved to the front)
e.g. VEE => EVE (last letter moved to the front)
p. palindrome riddle or crossdrome (palindromic phrase as the answer to a definition clue; crosswords of such answers)
[49-125]
e.g. Blue vehicle? NAVY VAN
e.g. Astronaut headgear? SPACE CAPS
e.g. Bitter bug? TANGY GNAT
q. palindromic year (year numeral, Arabic or Roman, that reads the same backward; runs of consecutive ones) [25-44]
e.g. Roman palindromic triennium MIIM, MIM, MM (1998-2000)
r. triple-letter-centred palindrome (three or more of one letter at the pivot), for each letter [28-105]
e.g. Ron, odd donor (DDD)
e.g. Warts ebb best raw (BBB)
e.g. We peer far off for a free pew (FFF)
tautonym (word formed by repeating a sequence of letters) [1-142,6-10,147,12-24,25-23,252]
a. longest [13-43]
common words: beriberi, couscous, hotshots, mahimahi (8-t)
uncommon words: brotherbrother, pitcherpitcher (14-t)
hyphenated word: heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh (18)
phrase: coccothraustes coccothraustes (28)
b. beginning with each letter [L175,13-39,15-241,19-27]
see list Longest Tautonym Beginning with Each Letter
c. biological tautonym (genus and species the same word) [16-103,29-146,29-253,30-151]
e.g. Bubo bubo (eagle owl)
e.g. Alle alle (little auk)
e.g. Grus grus (common crane)
d. accidental tautonym (tautonym in spelling only, not formed by reduplication) [41-293,42-174]
common word: testes
common word: hotshots
e. heterophonic tautonym (two halves pronounced differently) [44-201]
uncommon word: Isis
common word: tsetse
common word: testes
f. near-tautonym (two halves differ by one letter) [39-46,42-227,42-257]
common word: mishmash
common word: knickknack
e.g. Hong Kong
g. split transposal or neckout (second half is a transposal of the first), longest [32-302,35-84,35-236,TJ2-18]
e.g. antiperspirantes (16)
uncommon word: horseshoer
common word: intestines
h. tautonymic phrase (two words that together spell a tautonym) [42-282]
e.g. spikes pike (SPIKE SPIKE)
e.g. shows how (SHOW SHOW)
e.g. Sloan's loan (SLOAN SLOAN)
i. tautonym plus one letter at the front or end, for each letter [39-56,39-57]
common word: entente
common word: singing
common word: murmurs
j. triple tautonym (word or name formed by repeating a sequence three times: cha-cha-cha) [16-103,30-151]
uncommon word: cha-cha-cha
e.g. Rattus rattus rattus
head 'n' tail word (word formed by repeating a sequence of letters with one letter inserted between them) [2-179,3-41,102]
a. longest
common words: felafel, hotshot, manxman, oshkosh (7-t)
uncommon word: convexoconvex (13)
phrase: gentleman's gentleman (19)
b. beginning with each letter [1-249,3-48,107,4-132,170,5-6,24,181]
see list Longest Head 'n' Tail Beginning with Each Letter
c. centered on each letter [1-249,3-48,107,4-132,170,5-6,24,181,25-242,26-54,83,39-57,88]
see list Longest Head 'n' Tail Centered on Each Letter
start and end (starting and ending letters of word are identical)
a. longest prefix
common word: abracadabra (4)
uncommon words: benzeneazobenzene, surfacetosurface (7-t)
hyphenated word: pleasantness-unpleasantness (12)
phrase: switch and spurs, upon the switch and spur (13)
b. beginning with each letter [IN4-18,19,20,IN5-6,7,TJ2-44]
see list Longest Start and End Prefix Beginning with Each Letter
c. permed ends (first letters recur at the end in another order) [35-48]
common word: Sikorski
common word: classical
uncommon word: aestivates
number of different letters
a. isogram (all letters different), longest [L296,7-33,9-54,18-67,140,24-18,27-151,TJ9-56]
common word: uncopyrightable (15)
uncommon word: subdermatoglyphic (17)
b. pair isogram (each letter occurs two times), longest
[L14,128,1-201,4-136,142,5-25,111,205,6-13,212,7-33,15-136,16-156,219,18-140,26-156,27-39,28-149,32-302,34-266,35-27,
37-12]
common word: intestines (10)
uncommon words: esophagographers, orientationaller (16-t)
phrase: himantopus himantopus (20)
i. split pair isogram (second half a transposal of the first), longest [4-136,37-12]
uncommon word: horseshoer
common word: intestines
uncommon word: trisectrices (12)
c. trio isogram (each letter occurs three times), longest [5-26,143,6-213,7-33,88,150,15-136,138,18-140,23-28,31-68]
common word: deeded (6)
uncommon words: sestettes, sheeshehs, chachacha, redderred, tetterrer (9-t)
hyphenated word: blah-blah-blah (12)
d. tetrad isogram (each letter occurs four times), longest [1-142,18-140,31-68]
uncommon words: kukukuku, dedeeded, leelleel, noonnoon, ruurruur, saassaas, tuuttuut (8-t)
hyphenated word: kinnik-kinnik (12)
e. polygram (each letter occurs more than once), longest [5-49,110,27-38]
common words: chattahoochee, reengineering (13-t)
uncommon word: nepparterrestaalplaatserretrappen (33)
hyphenated phrase: ledger-ambassador or ambassador ledger (34)
f. geometric shapes [3-109,5-236,6-53,13-176,213,15-109,125,154,30-182,193,280,36-3,313,37-146,39-235]
i. pyramid word (one letter occurs once; one letter occurs twice; etc.), longest [3-102,13-175,15-125]
common words: keennesses, sanenesses, sereneness, sleeveless (10-t)
hyphenated word: dead-endednesses (15)
ii. tetrahedron word (one letter occurs once; two letters occur twice; etc.), longest
common word: instantiations (14)
iii. reverse tetrahedron word (one letter occurs four times; two letters occur three times; etc.), longest
uncommon words: autosuggestibilities, counterassassination, countertransferences, existentialistically,
inappreciativenesses, interesterifications, semicapitalistically, teleutosporiferouses,
ultraminiaturization, ... and 35 others (20-t)
g. ratio length to letters, highest [5-49,110,TJ4-45]
common word: senselessnesses (3.75)
uncommon word: hohohohohohoh (6.5)
hyphenated word: heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh (9)
h. ratio length to letters, highest non-tautonym [L158,298]
common word: senselessnesses (3.75)
uncommon word: hohohohohohoh (6.5)
hyphenated word: tit-tit-tit-tit-tit (7.5)
i. ratio length to letters, lowest for each length
see list Word with the Lowest Ratio Length to Number of Different Letters for Each Length
j. different letters, most [M56,7-11,10-43]
common word: uncopyrightable (15)
uncommon word: sulfamethoxypyridazine (18)
phrase: physiological jaundice of the newborn (20)
k. consonant pair isogram (each consonant occurs exactly twice, vowels free), longest [35-119,35-186,35-260]
common word: millennium
common word: starters
e.g. Degerstensgrundet
l. near-isogram (isogram except for one extra letter), longest [18-237,18-243]
uncommon word: ventriculography (16)
e.g. Black Thunder, Wyoming (19 letters, 18 different)
switch word (letters like train cars can be switched to a siding), longest [M38, 1-11,2-59,5-6,205, Dudeney]
common words: interpreting, sensuousness (12-t)
uncommon word: sensuousnesses (14)
hyphenated word: heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh (18)
spelling graphs (draw line from letter to letter looping back for repeated letters) [M41,13-131,141,14-23,89,251,28-15,29-97,170]
a. eodermdrone (spelling graph cannot be drawn in the plane without crossing lines), shortest [13-131,141]
uncommon word: metasomatoses (13)
b. chessboard-graphable word (letters placed on a chessboard so that a king or queen spells the word), longest
[14-251,27-74,124,29-56,202,31-197,40-3,45-3,151]
e.g. diaminopropyltetramethylenediamine (34): longest queen-graphable, also king-graphable
e.g. INSCIENCES: shortest word that cannot be queen-graphed
i. knight-graphable word (distinct letters placed on a chessboard so that knight moves spell the word), longest;
best 26-letter knight layout [48-2,48-84]
common word: undisguised
e.g. DEAD is not knight-graphable (D, E, A form a triangle)
c. word worm (each letter a unit step in a three-dimensional lattice; the word as a path), closed and knotted worms
[23-96,26-131,26-243,34-3,35-271,40-3]
e.g. TAXI: closed worm tracing two-thirds of a tetrahedron's edges
e.g. ethylenediaminetetraacetate (27): longest worm that never crosses itself
e.g. TYDBNYDRI: nine-letter "word" whose worm ties an overhand knot
d. word molecule (letters as circles, tangent where adjacent in the word) [27-113,27-172,27-238]
e. Ouija-board distance (path length of the planchette spelling the word), shortest and longest [38-174]
e.g. shortest: feed (68 pixels); longest four-letter: mama (1155)
e.g. 15 letters: dessertspoonful (826) vs uncomplainingly (3155)
f. edge word (letters laid row by row in a triangle or polygon; the edges read as words)
[30-280,31-274,39-235,40-235,41-10]
e.g. MEET as a rhombus M / E E / T has the edge word MET
g. pizza word (word encodable as at most eight cyclic slices of up to three letters) [IN1-20]
e.g. LIT|ENC|K = littleneck; LU|ENS|C|FMO|R|T|A|B = uncomfortablenesses
isomorph or matching letter pattern (words that repeat letters in the same places) [12-181]
e.g., DADDY = MOMMY since D & M in 1st, 3rd, 4th places
a. longest well-mixed [6-146,7-176,238]
common words: breathtakingly & chlorpromazine (14-t)
common words: comprehensible & counterexample (14-t)
common words: discriminative & simplification (14-t)
common words: rambunctiously & thermodynamics (14-t)
common words: excommunicated & transsexuality (14-t)
common words: excommunicates & transsexuality (14-t)
common words: decolonization & underestimates (14-t)
common words: recolonization & underestimates (14-t)
common words: coevolutionary & unsynchronized (14-t)
uncommon words: disequilibrizing & diversifiability (16-t)
uncommon words: isosulphocyanate & unenforceability (16-t)
uncommon words: hemianesthesicer & metaphenomenaler (16-t)
uncommon words: hemianesthesicer & metaphenomenales (16-t)
uncommon words: microgranulitics & pinealectomizing (16-t)
uncommon words: cytomorphologies & modificabilityes (16-t)
... and 6 others
hyphenated words: sketching-umbrella & unatmospherically (17)
phrases: capreolus capreolus & carduelis carduelis (18-t)
phrases: carduelis carduelis & merlangus merlangus (18-t)
phrases: merlangus merlangus & multiceps multiceps (18-t)
b. shortest word with no matching isomorph
common words: eel (3)
uncommon words: eeses (5-t)
uncommon words: essee (5-t)
uncommon words: hoooo (5-t)
uncommon words: xxiii (5-t)
uncommon words: xxxii (5-t)
uncommon words: xxxix (5-t)
hyphenated words: self-defense (11-t)
hyphenated words: self-esteems (11-t)
hyphenated words: hoo-oos (6-t)
hyphenated words: ill-lit (6-t)
hyphenated words: ooh-ooh (6-t)
phrases: CCCCM (5-t)
phrases: sass's (5-t)
hyphenated phrases: ne'er-do-wells (11)
hyphenated phrases: ass's-ears (8)
c. short patterns
i. four letters, all 15 possible [4-228,5-3]
ii. five letters, all 52 possible [4-113,12-106]
iii. six letters, all 203 possible [4-229,5-3]
iv. eight letters with two doubles, all 210 possible [9-206]
d. transposal or same numbers of repeated letters
i. ten letters, all 42 possible [4-231,5-14]
e. isomorphic non-crashing transposal (transposal pair that are isomorphs with no letter in the same place), longest
[5-104,5-168]
e.g. amam & mama
uncommon words: otto & toot
uncommon words: ritter & territ
Subset of Wordidentical letters
a. pairs
i. consecutive doubled letters, containing most [L166,1-120,152,218,4-180,25-185,36-65,304]
common word: bookkeeper (3)
uncommon word: subbookkeeper (4)
ii. doubled letters, containing most [36-65]
common words: addressee, aggressiveness, appellee, barrenness, bookkeeper, chattahoochee, committee,
commonness, effortlessness, greenness, heedlessness, heelless, immunosuppressant,
immunosuppression, keenness, kissimmee, merrillville, mississippi, mississippian, ... and 36
others (3-t)
uncommon word: nepparterrestaalplaatserretrappen (6)
iii. for each letter, shortest [14-154]
iv. two pairs, all 351 possible [6-17,83,10-246,16-156,20-213]
v. five letter words, all 260 possible [12-56,93,151]
b. starts and ends with the same letter [7-93,150,213]
i. longest
common word: straightforwardnesses (21)
uncommon word: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (34)
ii. for each letter, longest [7-93,24-90,25-216,26-83,27-40,43]
see list Longest Word that Starts and Ends with Each Letter
iii. for each letter, shortest [4-195,5-40]
see list Shortest Word that Starts and Ends with Each Letter
c. tripled letter, shortest [L297,2-191,203,5-7,14-151,154,217,15-16,104,154,16-157,30-148,34-294]
uncommon words: zzz, uuu, aaa, bbb, ccc, iii, kkk, ppp, sss, ... and 2 others (3-t)
d. quadruples [L297,2-53,3-147,180,5-8,23,7-41,213,12-91,14-90,15-18,84,19-4,27-40,30-86]
e. quintuples [1-31,3-252,4-144,5-8,26,73,12-91,16-24,17-26,20-110,38-127]
f. repeats of any one letter [5-23,7-6]
i. most [28-35,30-86,36-151]
common word: senselessnesses (7)
uncommon words: floccinaucinihilipilification, humuhumunukunukuapuaa, possessionlessnesses (9-t)
hyphenated word: heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh (12)
hyphenated phrases: wadi Arabah, Wadi el-Arabah Wadi al-Arabah, wadi al-Arabah, Wadi Arabah, Wadi el-Arabah
(13-t)
ii. most for each letter [2-53,3-252,39-43,TJ6-14,TJ7-11,12,TJ8-6]
see list Word Containing the Most Repeats of Each Letter
iii. ratio repeats to length, highest, for each letter [31-113]
see list Word with the Highest Ratio Letter Repeats to Length for Each Letter
iv. four-out-of-five word (one letter fills four of five consecutive places), for each letter
[31-113,31-189,31-272]
common word: granddaddy
common word: peewee
common word: pizzazz
g. consecutive identical letters across a sentence (word breaks and punctuation ignored), most
[11-44,11-150,11-216,12-25,12-91,12-214]
e.g. Jill'll love me (5 L in a row)
repeated letters, most
common words: electroencephalography, psychophysiological (8-t)
uncommon word: pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (11)
phrases: ambition should be made of sterner stuff, beta cell of anterior lobe of hypophysis, himantopus himantopus
leucocephalus, hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, ... and 5 others (13-t)
a. letter-heavy sentence (highest proportion of one letter) [19-170]
e.g. Sis sasses asses as sissies assess sassers (61.1% S)
alternating [1-31,4-77,5-73,12-91,16-253,20-110,23-27]
a. two-cadence (letter repeated every two), longest [4-77,17-26,23-214,TJ4-26]
common words: divisibility, visibilities (5-t)
uncommon word: humuhumunukunukuapuaa (8)
b. three-cadence (letter repeated every three), longest
common words: effervescence, inconveniencing, unexpectednesses (5-t)
uncommon words: inexperiencednesses, unexperiencednesses (6-t)
c. four-cadence (letter repeated every four), longest
common words: ineligibilities, inevitabilities (4-t)
phrase: arteriae pudendae externae (6)
d. five-cadence (letter repeated every five), longest
common words: abracadabra, adaptational, adequatenesses, aeronautical, aggressivenesses, agreeablenesses,
anticholinergic, antinational, antofagasta, attentivenesses, australasian, belligerence,
bioengineering, biomathematician, calculational, collaboration, collaborationist, commemoration,
concatenation, ... and 81 others (3-t)
uncommon words: benzeneazobenzene, indecipherablenesses, noncontamination, overassertivenesses, recollectivenesses,
antipestilentiaest, cardiopericardiopexies, entoperipheraller, entoperipherallest, ... and 14 others
(4-t)
phrases: textured vegetable protein, dame agatha mary clarissa christie, margo lacrimalis maxillae, nervi rectales
inferiores, ... and 6 others (5-t)
repeated prefix, longest [11-147,213,12-24,16-107,18-155,19-29,20-75,22-241]
common words: alfalfas, assassin, barbaric, barbarically, barbarossa, chechens, cincinnatians, cincinnatus, kinkiness,
murmured, preprepared, prepress, shoshone, tartaric, tartarus, ... and 14 others (6-t)
uncommon word: choledochocholedochostomy (20)
phrase: rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, is a rose (28)
internal structure
a. nontrivial internal palindrome, longest [L25,5-23,7-24,89,18-12,19-213,20-99,33-270,34-265,36-48,146]
common word: sensuousness (11)
uncommon word: nepparterrestaalplaatserretrappen (31)
b. nontrivial internal tautonym, longest [5-23,11-221,12-23,13-39,88,15-18,27-171]
common word: kamehameha (8)
uncommon word: choledochocholedochostomy (20)
phrase: rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, is a rose (28)
c. nontrivial internal head 'n' tail, longest
common words: bandstands, fractionation, grandstands, handstands, hodgepodge (9-t)
uncommon word: choledochocholedochostomy (19)
phrases: coccothraustes coccothraustes, rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, is a rose (27-t)
d. internal isogram [18-237,243]
e. Agamemnon word (consecutive three-letter palindromes, AGA-MEM-NON)
[13-104,20-176,34-218,37-42,38-201,39-207,40-177,40-248,40-320,41-159,41-300]
common word: Agamemnon
uncommon word: susuhunan
uncommon word: mimuluses
f. Albuquerque word (same trigram twice, separated by at least one letter) [41-70,42-138,42-168,42-224,45-2]
common word: albuquerque (QUE twice)
uncommon word: demisemiquaver (EMI twice)
g. ladder word (successive trigrams form a word-ladder sequence) [35-279,40-342,41-132,41-176,41-219]
uncommon word: perverser
common word: hashishes
e.g. insinking
h. sequential word (made entirely of consecutive palindromic, tautonymic or head 'n' tail sequences)
[38-3,40-251,40-342,41-132]
e.g. Susanna
common word: nonsense
i. internal isomorph (equal sections with identical letter patterns and no shared letters) [39-110]
common word: Attlee
uncommon word: cockerel
common word: Japanese
j. wellfleet word (contains trigrams ABB and BAA on the same two letters) [TJ12-5]
e.g. Wellfleet
common word: bittersweet
unusual spelling
a. to spell, most difficult [7-195,8-19,86]
common word: dumbbell [see "Misspelling" article]
uncommon word: desiccate [see "Misspelling" article]
b. exceptions to I before E [2-90,7-43,146,214,23-71]
i. E before I
see list Word Spelled with E Before I, Beginning with Each Letter
ii. I before E after C [2-90]
see list Word Spelled with I Before E after C, Beginning with Each Letter
c. American word ending "our" but pronounced like "or," multisyllabic
common words: glamour, troubadour
d. variant spellings of a non-foreign word, most
uncommon words: catercorner : cater-corner & cater-cornered & catacorner & cata-cornered & catty-corner &
catty-cornered & kitty-corner & kitty-cornered (9)
e. E-retaining participle (present participle keeps silent E to differ from another verb's: singeing) [9-234]
common words: singeing & singing
common words: dyeing & dying
ending -gry [9-43,152,10-152,19-131,20-84,*22-195,23-6,9,28,153,25-253,30-232]
i. example
see "-Gry" article
ii. similar examples
see list Common Words with Unique Ending and Uncommon Partner, for Each Letter
j. other rare terminal trigrams and bigrams (very few words end in them) [40-31,41-129]
e.g. -GYR: only egyr and kongyr in the OED
e.g. -RYG: only carryg in the OED
i. rare terminal letter (complete list of words ending in J, the second rarest final letter) [25-249]
uncommon word: hadj
uncommon word: benj
all letter orders in word [17-252,18-40]bigrams or digrams
a. beginning, all 676 possible [B129,8-89,207,12-39]
b. ending, all 676 possible [B101,3-152,211,8-165,208,12-39,152,16-157]
c. start and end, all 676 possible
i. longest [4-45,195,5-15,6-186]
ii. shortest [5-40,81]
d. straddling hyphen, all 676 possible [14-199,15-16,18-90]
e. anywhere, all 676 possible [2-215,3-19,8-88,153,9-17,15-215,16-26,24-26,26-154,27-24]
f. double, triple, quadruple, all 676 possible [21-252,22-162]
g. long strings, all 325 possible [15-72,153,212]
h. five letter words, all 13000 possible [11-226,12-22]
trigrams, all 17576 possible [2-166,245,3-17,179,253,4-59,81,124,5-22,12-91,13-179,15-84,18-118]
a. alphabetically universal trigram (found in words beginning with each letter A-Z) [41-102]
e.g. ROS: acrostic, bros, corrosive, dextrose ... virosis
b. unique trigram (trigram found in only one word of a dictionary) [18-112]
e.g. SPB, found only in raspberry
tetragram sets, all 23751 possible [16-14,67,92,154,195,219]Contents | next: Spelling: Vowels |