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A Word to the Wise

How many 7 or 8 letter words that have the ending –WISE can you think of? You might be surprised by how many there are. E-I-S are common letters to get on your rack. You should consider this possibility whenever there is a W to go with them.

Write down your words and compare them with the list at the end of this blog.

While you consider that challenge I will give you 20 unrelated words all including the letter W. Hopefully there will be some that will be useful for you.

EEEW Used to express disgust. Both EEW and EEEW were new words added

in the most recent update.

WAAH An interjection used to express wailing

WAWA To speak, adopted from native American

WHOW To impress. Your opponent might be impressed when you put an E in

front of it to make EWHOW

WUDU Islamic ritual of hand washing before daily prayers

CRWTH An ancient Celtic musical instrument

DWAAL A state of befuddlement

KWELA A form of Zulu folk music

MAHWA A kind of butter tree with edible flowers

MALWA A Ugandan drink brewed from millet

WAGYU A breed of Japanese cow. Familiar to all watchers of 'Masterchef'

WANZE To waste away

WAZIR A minister in various Muslim countries

WEAMB Womb

WEDEL Ski in a swiveling motion with the skis close together. Also WEDELN

WIGGA A white youth who adopts black youth culture

WILJA An aboriginal shelter. Also WILTJA

WUSHU A Chinese martial art

WUXIA A genre of Chinese fiction with sword wielding heroes

YAKOW A crossbreed between a male yak and a domestic cow

OK, so how did you go with those –WISE words?

There are only 9 words of 7 letters, but there are 25 words of 8 letters.

Do you want to have another think?

No? OK here they are:

AIRWISE Skilled in aviation

ANYWISE In any manner

BITWISE A computer term about a program that handles bits of words

ENDWISE Lengthwise

FANWISE Spread out like an open fan

MANWISE In the manner of a man. wiseman is wrong. (WISEWOMAN is OK)

MAPWISE In the manner of a map

SUNWISE In the direction of the sun’s apparent revolution

TAXWISE Pertaining to taxes

ARCHWISE In the manner of an arch

BENDWISE Diagonally. Also BENDWAYS

COMBWISE In the way of a comb

CRABWISE Sideways, in the manner of a crab

DROPWISE By drops

EDGEWISE With the edge foremost or uppermost. Also EDGEWAYS

ELSEWISE Otherwise

FESSWISE In the manner of a band across a shield

FLATWISE With the flat side in a particular position

LIKEWISE In a similar manner

LONGWISE Along the length

OVERWISE Too wise or affectedly wise

PAIRWISE Arranged in pairs

PALEWISE A heraldic term meaning arranged vertically. Also PALEWAYS

PLOWWISE Back and forth in alternate rows

RINGWISE In the manner of a ring

SIDEWISE Towards or on one side. Also SIDEWAY, SIDEWAYS

SOMEWISE Somehow. Also SOMEWAY, SOMEWAYS

STEPWISE Marked by a gradual progression

SUCHWISE In such a manner

TEAMWISE Harnessed together

TENTWISE Pertaining to a tent

THUSWISE In this manner

WARPWISE In a vertical direction

WEFTWISE In a horizontal direction

Some of you may already have spotted that ENDWISE can be extended to

BENDWISE and that AIRWISE can become PAIRWISE, but a really nice hook

would be another W to turn EDGEWISE into WEDGEWISE

One thing is true of all these WISE words. None of them can be extended at the end with an S or any other letter

Cheers

Patrick

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