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Pekka
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icon Small word puzzle (+2)  
Let's place some letters of the alphabet (the standard 26 English one) in a three by three grid. Start with A on the top left, then fill it in order of rows one, two and three. The result is this.

A B C
D E F
G H I


Then let's look for English words in the grid. The rules are that you can use each letter only once and you have to make a continuous path with adjacent letters (straight or diagonal steps). You can step to any of the eight adjacent letters from the middle one, or the fewer than eight adjacent letters from edge or corner spots. No wrapping around is allowed, but the path can intersect itself as long as it doesn't use the same letter more than once.

You'll find the past tense of feed there: FED. BEAD and HEAD should be easy to see too. Are there any words of five letters though?

Spoilers:
Click here to view the secret text


How many English words of five letters or more can you find if you can choose any starting letter for filling the grid? You can fill the whole grid by wrapping around to A if necessary, so you can choose from 26 different grids. For example, starting with Y gives you this grid.

Y Z A
B C D
E F G


I don't see any five-letter English words in it at all. Maybe you can find some better starting letters and corresponding words, five letters or longer. If so, post them in a spoiler tag please. I have a good reason to believe there is something to find.

I won't specify which dictionary decides if a word is allowed. This isn't a competition. Just a bit of fun if you like this sort of fun.
02-08-2020 at 06:48 AM
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Nuntar
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icon Re: Small word puzzle (+1)  
I have another 5, but haven't found anything longer yet:

Click here to view the secret text


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02-08-2020 at 05:12 PM
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TripleM
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icon Re: Small word puzzle (0)  
I tried doing it by hand, and:
Click here to view the secret text

I tried doing it by non-hand, and:
Click here to view the secret text

02-10-2020 at 07:18 PM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Small word puzzle (0)  
Well, if you're serious about *any* English dictionary, then https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/spronk

I probably wouldn't go that far.

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02-10-2020 at 08:35 PM
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Pekka
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icon Re: Small word puzzle (+1)  
Thanks for the replies, everyone! I haven't found a completely satisfactory six-letter word, but I do have various five-letter words that haven't been posted yet. I'll put them inside a secret tag.

Click here to view the secret text

02-11-2020 at 09:01 AM
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TripleM
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icon Re: Small word puzzle (0)  
Challenge: what's the longest word you can find in this grid?
BCDEF
GHIJK
LMNOP
QRSTU
VWXYZ


[Last edited by TripleM at 02-16-2020 06:59 AM]
02-16-2020 at 06:58 AM
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Nuntar
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icon Re: Small word puzzle (+1)  
Click here to view the secret text


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[Last edited by Nuntar at 02-16-2020 03:59 PM]
02-16-2020 at 03:39 PM
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disoriented
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icon Re: Small word puzzle (0)  
It's possible to write a pretty efficient solver for these kinds of games. If you're a programmer, you might find that there's a rather interesting data structure you can use to help with the efficiency.

Click here to view the secret text


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Best to PM me, since I might miss your message on CaravelNet chat.
02-16-2020 at 06:13 PM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Small word puzzle (+1)  
disoriented wrote:
It's possible to write a pretty efficient solver for these kinds of games. If you're a programmer, you might find that there's a rather interesting data structure you can use to help with the efficiency.

Click here to view the secret text
If by using a data structure, you mean asking the Infohut, that didn't go very quickly the last time I tried.

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02-16-2020 at 06:54 PM
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