Scrabble Bingo of the Day: CUCURBIT

CUCURBIT  n pl. -S  a gourd

64 points (14 points without the bingo)

Halloween is just around the corner, and by now most of you have already picked up a CUCURBIT to gut and carve scary faces into. Yes, that jack-o-lantern decorating your doorstep for all of the trick-or-treaters this Halloween is called a cucurbit. So why haven't you ever heard anyone call a pumpkin a cucurbit before?

Because a pumpkin isn't the only cucurbit out there.

A cucurbit could mean any hard-rinded fruit from the Cucurbitaceae family of plants, aka the gourd family. Foremost, a GOURD is a climbing or trailing plant that bears fruit, and that fleshy fruit with tough shell—it bears the same name. Cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, luffas, and melons are all gourds, or cucurbits. The term CALABASH is also used.

Synonyms

CALABASH  n pl. -ES  a gourd
GOURD  n pl. -S  a hard-shelled fruit

Related Words

BRYONY  n pl. -NIES  a climbing plant
CALABAZA  n pl. -S  a glarge winter squash
CUCUMBER  n pl. -S  a garden vegetable
CUKE  n pl. -S  a cucumber
LOOFA  n pl. -S  loofah
LOOFAH  n pl. -S  a tropical vine
LUFFA  n pl. -S  loofah
MELON  n pl. -S  any of various gourds
PUMPKIN  n pl. -S  a large edible fruit
ZUCCHINI  n pl. -S  a vegetable

Photo by Randy Son Of Robert, Sister72, scott1723, ginnerobot

What's a Scrabble Bingo?

A bingo is when a player empties his or her rack in one turn, placing all seven of their letters on the board to create a word that's at least seven letters long. The term "bingo" is used primarily in the U.S., but elsewhere it's simply known as a "bonus" because you get a bonus of 50 points added to your turn's score. "Scrabble Bingo of the Day" will focus on these high scoring plays, teaching you some interesting and possibly unusual seven-letter or longer words accepted in a game of Scrabble.

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