A nine-letter word, common as air, When each letter’s cut, a new word to pare, Take a letter each round and continue to one. Name the word and the path and then you’ll be done.
Surprisingly, there are several nine-letter words that can have one letter removed in each round to make a new word all the way to one letter, which must be ‘a’ or ‘i’. Startling is the most common answer, but I’ve included the other words I’m aware of. I don’t include plural words, like cleansers, drownings, splatters, starvings, trappings and wrappings because it’s kind of cheating.
startling Remove the l to make starting (or remove the t to make starling) Remove the t to make staring Remove the a to make string Remove the r to make sting Remove the t to make sing Remove the g to make sin Remove the s to make in Remove the n to make I
splitting Remove the l to make spitting Remove the p to make sitting Remove a t to make siting Remove the first i to make sting Remove the s to make ting Remove the g to make tin Remove the t to make in Remove the n to make I
stringier Remove the r to make stingier Remove the i to make stinger Remove the t to make singer Remove the r to make singe Remove the g to make sine Remove the e to make sin Remove the s to make in Remove the n to make I
strapping Remove the s to make trapping Remove the t to make rapping Remove the p to make raping Remove the r to make aping Remove the a to make ping Remove the g to make pin Remove the p to make in Remove the n to make I
A snail creeps 10 feet up a wall during the daytime, then falls asleep. It wakes up the next morning and discovers it slipped down 6 feet. If this happens each day, how many days will it take to reach the top of a 20 foot wall?
The first four letters are a variation of the weather. The third through seventh letters give support but also could used when someone is executed. And the last three letters forms the name of a person.
Use each clue to identify a famous person who last name ends in the letters T-O-N, like George Washington.
1. Friends star 2. Cotton Club bandleader 3. Batman and Beetlejuice lead 4. Blonde, buxom country music legend
Halfway there!
5. Steamboat developer 6. Author of The Age of Innocence 7. Found of a Kmart rival and a Club 8. She lead a news website called The (her last name) Post
A piano. The word piano has five letters, and the scale on the piano is A through G, seven letters. The piano keys don’t have locks and playing piano requires you to keep time (but with a metronome, not a clock).