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Get Your Motor Running

Have a try at finding the words in the letter combinations below:

A P I L N O S

E H I L L O O

A C I L N 0 S

There are only 3 words, so have a go at the quiz before you move on.

Just before I give you the answers to those we’ll have a quick look at the 7 letter words you might play if your rack was PETROL with a blank. I will put the blank letter in lower case:

PROLaTE Having flattened sides due to lengthwise elongation

dROPLET A tiny drop

PRETOLd Past tense of the verb PRETELL, to tell beforehand

POiTREL A piece of armour for the breast of a horse

POLiTER Being more considerate of others

PREmOLT Preceding a molt. Can also be spelled PREMOULT

PETROLs Supplies with petrol. Needs LL when used as a verb – PETROLLED

REPLOTs Plots again

PLOtTER (Scottish) Dabble in liquid. A verb, so PLOTTERED is good

PLOuTER Another spelling of the Scottish for dabbling in liquid

POuLTER A dealer in dead fowls and wild game

PLOwTER Yet another variation of the dabbling in liquid

PROTyLE A hypothetical source of chemical elements

That is all on petrol. This blog is mostly about words starting with oil. If you had spotted that the three words in the opening puzzle all had the letters OIL in them you would have been a long way towards solving them all. They are:

OILPANS The American word for sumps

OILHOLE A hole through which oil is injected

OILCANS This has an anagram. ALNICOS. Only spelled this way, not alnicoes

OILPANS and OILCANS both came up in practice, but I was surprised at just how hard they were for me to see. The normal feeling is to try to start with the P and the C rather than the letter O. Although there are plenty of examples to the contrary, if you have 6 letters worth 1 point each and 1 higher point letter the most common place to put that letter is at the start of the word. For example, words such as BUTTONS, CLUTTER, FORESTS, MISTIER, POSTERS, VAULTER or WITTIER. Have another look at the list for PETROL and you will see that 11 of the 13 words start with the letter P.

However I have wandered away from the theme of my blog. Because I found it so difficult to unscramble OILCANS and OILPANS, I decided to have a look at some other OIL words:

OILBIRD A nocturnal bird of South America and Trinidad

OILCAMP A living area for workers at an oil well

OILCLOTH A fabric, usually cotton, waterproofed with oil or resin

OILCUPS Closed cups for supplying lubricants. Has an anagram of UPCOILS

OILERIES Plural of OILERY. Look out to hook a B for BOILERIES

OILFIELD An area of mineral oil production

OILFIRED Using oil as fuel

OILGASES The plural of OILGAS. Also makes GOLIASES and SOILAGES

OILIEST Hooks make NOILIEST, ROILIEST & SOILIEST. An anagram is IOLITES

OILINESS The state of being oily. ELISIONS, ISOLINES and LIONISES

OILLETS An archaic word for an eyelet. Also makes STELLIO and TOLLIES

OILNUTS The North American butternut. Also makes ULTIONS

OILPAPER Paper which has been oiled to make it waterproof

OILSEED A kind of rape, the seeds of which contain oil

OILSKIN A waterproof fabric

OILSTONE A stone for sharpening tools. Also makes LOONIEST.

OILTIGHT Having the ability to exclude oil

OILWAYS Channels for the passage of oil

I hope I have been able to give you the good oil this time!

Happy Scrabbling

Patrick

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