Monday Puzzle: Can You Figure Out These Bizarre Words?

April 4, 2023

Alejandro Sanchez

Word nerds: This challenge of homophones and syllables is for you

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Puzzle #5: Strange Syllables

1. Find a one-syllable word that becomes a three-syllable word when one letter is added to the end of it. There are at least three valid answers that are common English words and not proper nouns.
2. Homophones are words that are spelled differently but sound the same. There are few precious examples of four words that are all homophones of each other (like knew, new, gnu, and the Greek letter nu). The puzzle is to find something even rarer: four two-syllable words that are all homophones of each other. Again, no proper nouns.

I’m only aware of one satisfying answer to the homophone puzzle (a couple of others only work in some regional accents). Although most readers will have encountered all of the solution words, they may not have realized that they’re spelled differently. Because generating words from thin air is difficult, I’m going to give a hint. If you’d like to attempt the puzzle without a hint, don’t read on.