Cryptocritters

The Word Nerd Strikes Again

It’s a puzzle, it’s a game, it’s a mildly amusing waste of time

1. Find the name(s) of the animals in the word:  giANT, CATalog,  RATCATcher, or
2. See how long a list you can make up

Rules:  You get to make them up, but here are some ideas –

The Purist Version – (a) the animal name can’t mean the actual animal (e.g. you don’t take credit for 2 animals in ratcatcher because rat really means rat).  (b) You only get to use a common prefix (anti-, ante-) or suffix (-cate) once. (c) Only one form of the containing word (grate, grater, grates are all the same).  Extra points for multiple or nested names in the same word  (e.g., CLAMBer).

The Greedy Scorer Version – anything that has an animal name in another word counts.

Original version allows anything alive that is not a plant or a fungus; you can make it anything alive, or do just plants, or divide it up into smaller groups.

Sample starter set:

dynamite                                      beetroot                                 blouse

scowl                                            sewer                                       spigot

entitled                                        steerage                                  probing

classy                                           unbearable                             prayerful

encode                                        whenever                                resealing

whelk                                          flywheel                                  escrow

Got it?  Make up your own and put them in REPLY.