[Ads-l] That "words ending in -gry" puzzle (early-ish sighting, 1974)

[James Landau]

from Jeff Miller's Website A Collection of Word Oddities and Triviahttp://jeff560.tripod.com/words1.html
<quote>ANHUNGRY is one answer to the question, "What’s the other word besides 'angry' and 'hungry' that ends in 'gry'?" This is the most frequently asked question of the editors of Merriam-Webster. Actually, "angry" and "hungry" are the only two words in common use ending in -gry, but quite a few obsolete or obscure words can be found in unabridged dictionaries. Among them are ANHUNGRY, used by Shakespeare, and AGGRY BEAD, both of which are in W3. The only -GRY words in RHUD2 are ANGRY, HUNGRY, HALF-ANGRY, OVERANGRY, and UNANGRY. Chambers has AGGRY (an adjective describing certain ancient West African beads) and AHUNGRY (oppressed with hunger). OSPD has PUGGRY (a variant form of the more usual PUGGAREE, a scarf wrapped around a sun helmet). The OED has angry, an-hungry, begry, conyngry, gry, higry pigry, hungry, iggry, meagry, menagry, nangry, podagry, skugry, unangry. 

[An alternate solution this question is the word "language." The person actually says, "Think of words ending in -gry. Hungry and angry are 2 of them. There are three words in the english language. What is the third? You use it every day. If you paid attention I have already told you the answer." More on the -gry question can be found at  http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/gry.htm and at  http://www.tempe.gov/library/netsites/gry.htm.]  http://jeff560.tripod.com/words1.html<end quote>
Note: both Websites cited in the last sentence appear to be out of date.

James Landau
jjjrlandau at netscape.com

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