Knowing words with multiple vowels proves useful when you’re faced with a rack of mostly, or all, vowels. Here’s a list of the first twenty-two playable four-letter words with three vowels:

• aeon: a long period of time (also eon)
• agee: to one side (also ajee)
• agio: a surcharge applied when exchanging currency
• ague: a sickness associated with malaria
• ajee: to one side (also agee)
• akee: a tropical tree
• alae: wings (pl. of ala)
• alee: on the side shielded from wind
• amia: a freshwater fish
• amoa: a kind of small buffalo
• awee: a little while
• eaux: waters (pl. of eau)
• eide: distinctive appearances of things (pl. of eidos)
• emeu: an emu
• etui: an ornamental case
• euro: an Australian marsupial, also known as wallaroo, for being like the kangaroo and the wallaby; also a unified currency of much of Europe
• ilea: the terminal portions of small intestines (pl. of ileum)
• ilia: pelvic bones (pl. of ilium)
• jiao: a Chinese currency (also chiao)
• luau: a large Hawaiian feast
• meou: to meow
• moue: a pouting expression

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Next Up

Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, or Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble tips, including this one.

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Happy Spring Break!

After spring break, we will examine the student analysis “Wait Means Never,” which I distributed in class on February 18, and “The Strange Fruit of Sosnowiec,” my model analysis of a page of Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir Maus, which I will distribute in class on March 2

Before class on Monday, March 2, read and annotate “Wait Means Never,” and study the page of Maus posted in the readings folder on Blackboard. As you examine the page, note in your journal what elements of the page you would address if you were writing an analysis of it.

If you were absent on February 18 or misplaced your copy of “Wait Means Never,” download a copy from Blackboard.