Polywords

Elf

Make as many words as you can from just nine letters. Can you beat our score?

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© Deror_avi, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

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Elf

© Deror_avi, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0. Source
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A mosaic of angels in the Church of the Saviour on the Blood in St Petersburg, Russia. Anglo-Saxon names often combined ‘elf’ with other elements, and the Christians continued the practice, not regarding it as pagan, but accepting ‘elf’ as an equivalent for ‘angel’. The Bishop of Winchester who took Olaf Tryggvason’s oath of fealty to King Ethelred was called Ælfheah, ‘elven-tall’. See Home Page.

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Introduction

A Polyword is a game with words and letters. Make words of four letters or more from the letters of a nine-letter word, using each letter only once. Include the highlighted letter in every word you make. Can you beat our score?

Tap on any letter to use it for your word. Remember to include the highlighted letter. To change the highlighted letter and get different words, click here.

See All Words

eight eighty felt fight file filet filth filthy flew flight flighty flit flyweight gift gilt gite heft heftily hefty hilt left lefty legit life lift light lite lithe thew they thief tile twig weft weigh weight weighty welt wetly whet whey while whit white whitey wife wifely wight wile wilt wily with yeti
flight eighty weight filthy eight thief fight light while white hefty weigh filth wife with wilt felt file flew flit gift gilt twig hilt left life lift they tile
eight eighty felt fight file filet filth filthy flew flight flighty flit flyweight gift gilt gite heft heftily hefty hilt left lefty legit life lift light lite lithe thew they thief tile twig weft weigh weight weighty welt wetly whet whey while whit white whitey wife wifely wight wile wilt wily with yeti

Archive

See All Polywords (252)

Find Elf in the Archive

Practice

Spinners Find in Think and Speak

For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.

This exercise uses words found in the accompanying puzzle.

1 Gift. Twig. Weigh.

2 Gilt. Hilt. They.

3 Eight. Felt. Flit.

Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)

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