Note: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the group Check, Please! presentation scheduled for this morning has been postponed until Friday. Subsequently, Friday’s Wordplay Day will take place instead.
The first Scrabble post of the semester featured first names that are also common nouns, making them playable in Scrabble. Today’s post includes place names, or toponyms, more proper nouns that are playable in Scrabble because they’re also common nouns. Studying these words offers you additional opportunities to broaden your vocabulary and up your game.
- afghan: a wool blanket
- alamo: a cottonwood poplar tree
- alaska: a heavy fabric
- berlin: a type of heavy fabric
- bermudas: a variety of knee-length, wide-legged shorts
- bohemia: a community of unconventional, usually artistic, people
- bolivia: a soft fabric
- bordeaux: a wine from the Bordeaux region
- boston: a card game similar to whist
- brazil: a type of tree found in Brazil used to make instrument bows (also brasil)
- brit: a non-adult herring
- cayman: a type of crocodile, also known as a spectacled crocodile (also caiman)
- celt: a type of axe used during the New Stone Age
- chile: a spicy pepper (also chili)
- colorado: used to describe cigars of medium strength and color
- congo: an eellike amphibian
- cyprus: a thin fabric
- dutch: referring to each person paying for him or herself
- egyptian: a sans serif typeface
- english: to cause a ball to spin
- french: to slice food thinly
- gambia: a flowering plant known as cat’s claw (also gambier, which is a small town in Ohio)
- geneva: gin, or a liquor like gin
- genoa: a type of jib (a triangular sail), also known as a jenny, first used by a Swedish sailor in Genoa
- german: also known as the german cotillon, an elaborate nineteenth-century dance
- greek: something not understood
- guinea: a type of British coin minted from 1663 to 1813
- holland: a linen fabric
- japan: to gloss with black lacquer
- java: coffee
- jordan: a chamber pot
- kashmir: cashmere
- mecca: a destination for many people
Next Up (Later This Morning)
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips, including this one.
Coming Soon
In class on Friday, you will finalize your preparations, deliver your Check, Please! presentation, and write your reflection.
Jane Lucas 