Since today’s Wordplay Day occurs on Halloween, this morning’s Scrabble blog post is devoted to words for ghosts. Two of the words (banshee and eidolon) are seven letters long, enabling a player or team to Scrabble, or bingo, earning an additional fifty points for the play. Another two are eight letters long (barguest and fairyism) and can be formed by adding letters to a word played previously.
- banshee: a female spirit in Gaelic folklore that wails to warn of a family member’s imminent death. Note that this word is featured in Stephen King’s short story “Strawberry Spring,” which we studied in class on Monday.
- barguest: a goblin (also barghest)
- bogy: a goblin
- daimon: a spirit (also daemon and demon)
- eidolon: a phantom or specter
- fairyism: the quality of being like a fairy (not really a ghost but a great word)
- haint: a ghost
- kelpie: a water sprite in Scottish folklore known for drowning sailors
- wraith: a ghost of a person, often appearing just before that person’s death
- zombi: a zombie
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble tips, including this one.
Jane Lucas 