Wikipedia is not always right, and although the sight does claim it is considered use of both genders, it is commonly known for males. I am a tech at a verterinary hospital, I have neutered cats. If a surgery came in as a spay, it would be considered female, no if's or but's about it. I still believe the true answer should be spay. That is the "technical" term, it shouldn't be so vague.

This game deals with words which you may be familiar with one definition but which word has a dozen obscure meanings, all viable as correct answers. This is not a game of current vernaculars. It is a test of knowledge of several large dictionaries. Nothing in the original posit asked that a male be spayed. Neutering, from the latin, means to remove any sexual organs, male or female. Bob Barker or the Network Pooh-Bahs are to blame for not saying "Have your animal neutered, by either spaying or castration."

Thank you for your challenging work.

This typo in the database gave me a laugh.

12. Cunning
Your answer: drafty artfulness (especially in deception)

Love it! Drafty artfulness might come in useful sometimes! Hot and humid days or when you want to air out the attic...

I thought it was an errant Spoonerism as in rafty dartfullness, an incongruous oxymoron if the raft is inflatable and thus a cunning observation.

14 bulwarks

an expert in soil management and field-crop production
a site where people on holiday can pitch a tent
the act of removing the contents of something
feed as in a meadow or pasture
a fence-like structure around a deck
a fortification of earth


The last two choices are equally defensible - needs editing.

I remember having seen somewhere that the possible answers are picked randomly from a database. So editing is not in order, but the random factor has presented you with an awkward pairing.

13 the semantic relation of being a manner of does something

whack
economy
exteriorization
brick
sop up
troponymy

Anyone care to guess?

I see. It came straight from the freedictionary.com:

ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms

Noun 1. troponymy - the semantic relation of being a manner of does something
semantic relation - a relation between meanings
2. troponymy - the place names of a region or a language considered collectively

troponomy
place name, toponym - the name by which a geographical place is known
aggregation, collection, accumulation, assemblage - several things grouped together or considered as a whole

Oh, how embarrassing. This is old hat - it's already been discussed. Sorry! I tried to delete but wasn't allowed. Maybe early-onset Alzheimer's...

That's what you might call a 'typonymy', typing something in the manner of does something by typing of something or something done like that.

Thanks for clearing that up, and so eloquently!

(I blush)

Winning all or all but one of the tricks in bridge
Your answer: sweep

I got it right but no bridge player would ever use the word "sweep" to denote this. The correct terminology for this is "slam", and the two terms are not interchangeable.

No really an issue, but more of a coincidence. If one of these two definitions could be changed perhaps.

Graveyard
Your answer: a tract of land used for burials

Cemetery
Your answer: a tract of land used for burials

I had this pair in the Word Wizard this hour. It is a case of UK and US words, so maybe delete one?

Not sure if this one has come up before.


'or' should be 'of'.

Note the word "uaually".

This just happened in the same game:





I don't know.. not every liquor is a liqueur, but still it's quite confusing.

The "correct answer" is provided as:

13. The 300th anniversary (or the celebration of it)
Your answer: triennial

This of course is a word for a three-year event, not 300 (should instead be tricentennial, tercentenary).

Coincidence? The question numbers included in the errors noted on this page are almost all #13 (and 12 and 14 average out)...

Coincidence - the issues have been noted before, and in different sets.

From today's set:

11. Banch
Your answer: (law) the seat for judges in a courtroom

I think this probably should be "bench".

Luckily I assumed it was a typo - none of the other answers seemed to fit the non-existant word "banch" either!

If you go back to an earlier page of this thread, I did actually track down an online source that is probably where it comes from. This game uses an external source, not a FunTrivia database.

A rather novel use of quotes/apostrophes.

Not a biggie, but:

4. A territory that is controllled by a ruling state

3 'l's in controlled?

10. Works for an expert to learn a trade
Your answer: prentice

It appears to missing missing the AP at the start.

There's nothing missing, it's just an older way of saying apprentice.

Just seeing if anyone else is having interesting draws for the letters for the Mini-Game. In the last week, it seems like it is all vowels. Had a streak of 11 straight vowels then 2 consonants and now am working on 13 out of 15 vowels again! Been running about 90-95 percent vowels. Makes it interesting having to trade in 6 vowels or more just to make a short word!

These things happen - there has been quite a bit of discussion about it on another thread. The last time I ended up with 12 consonants I did some trades, and by the time I was back up to 12 letters was able to play my first (and, so far, only) 12-letter word, so there is hope.

edited to remove typo