Halloween is just a few days away, and since I've been churning out the creepy Bingo of the Days for everyone the past few weeks, it seems fitting to do a puzzle based on them.
Too bad today isn't Friday the 13th! That will have to wait until 2017.
The Challenge
Take a look at the following ten racks.
Now, aiming for a bingo play, use the board below and try to use up your full rack for each set of letters, spelling out one of the following Halloween-related words that was featured as a Bingo of the Day word. Which ones can you find? Which ones are impossible? What's the best one?
BURKITE n pl.-S a burker (one that murders by suffocation)
CARRION n pl. -S dead and putrefying flesh
COLOSSUS n pl. COLOSSUSES or COLOSSI a gigantic statue (e.g. a sacrificial Wicker Man)
CREMAINS n/pl the ashes of a cremated body
CUCURBIT n pl. -S a gourd (e.g. a pumpkin)
GUISARD n pl. -S a masker (you know… someone who wears a mask)
HEXEREI n pl. -S witchcraft
MIMESIS n pl. -MESISES or -MESES mimicry MIMETIC adj (think The Thing)
REAPHOOK n pl. -S an implement used in reaping (think Children of the Corn)
REVENANT n pl. -S one that returns (e.g. a zombie)
This one's going to take some time, since you're essentially taking ten turns to come up with the best Halloween worthy bingo play. If it's too much for you, I have another rack for you to solve. Use the following rack of letters and find the play worth 765 points. Yes, that's 765.
The word relates in some manner to a few of the defined words above. Can you find out what and where it is? And what it means? Just imagine if you could snag this play in a real game. It would definitely make you the winner, and possibly even give you your highest score ever in Scrabble!
SPOILER ALERT: Comments below may reveal solutions.
Last Week's Solution
And here's the answer for last week's Scrabble Challenge #12:
Q: Unscramble the following jumbles to spell out a seven-letter bingo word that is listed in the OSPD4 as a derivative: CHMRYRI, ZEDYDLA, CITRXEO, BESOWLA, YHRLISL, WOAYDME, GCAENIR, GZCYTIO, YLPHITI, DGESIAV.
A: In order, with the root words in parentheses: MYRRHIC (MYRRH), DAZEDLY (DAZE), XEROTIC (XEROSIS), SOWABLE (SOW), SHRILLY (SHRILL), MEADOWY (MEADOW), ANERGIC (ANERGY), ZYGOTIC (ZYGOTE), PITHILY (PITHY), VISAGED (VISAGE).
Bonus: There are a few additional bingos to be found in the ten puzzles. There's one word that's a noun in both the OSPD4 and CSW12, and another that's a noun in just the CSW12.
A: The word playable in both dictionaries is EXCITOR, which just means an exciter (one that excites). The one found in only the CSW12 is GRECIAN (a step).
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5 Comments
Anthroposhagie at the bottom
Wow I can't type today... Meant to say anthropophagies
Yep, that's definitely it. Good job. I wish those triple-triple-triples would actually come up in a game for me once. But it's highly unlikely. Now how about the best bingo of the board with the Halloween words? PS... I know... it's not my best puzzle to date, but it'll have to do.
I would love to one day be able to use three triple-word score squares in one turn. Like you said, it's highly unlikely. I wonder if anyone's done this in any tournaments.
I only see 3 possible bingo plays using 2 of the Halloween words listed. Using the 'C' in 'cadets' on the board. I'll omit the actual solutions in case someone else wants to chime in. :)
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