CRUCIVERBALIST

[Dr. Goodword]

• cruciverbalist •

Pronunciation: kru-sê-vêr-bêl-ist • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A crossword puzzle creator. 2. A crossword puzzle enthusiast or a word game enthusiast in general.

Notes: Today's is a Good Word that we should have run long ago, since I am sure most of our readers are word game fans. This word is so new that none of its derivations have reached print yet, so far as we know. However—you read it here first—we can tell you what they will be. The noun for writing or filling in crosswords will be cruciverbalism and solving problems as though they were crossword puzzles will be done (the adverb) cruciverbalistically.

In Play: Most of us will use this word most often in referring to a crossword puzzle enthusiast: "My father is a cruciverbalist who holds up the whole family when he gets the New York Times before the rest of us." A good cruciverbalist will be able to take the word startling and remove one letter at a time in such a sequence that the result of each deletion is a word, ending up with one letter which is also a word, e.g. startling > starting > . . . . How good a cruciverbalist are you?

Word History: Today's Good Word is one recently contrived from bits and pieces of French and Latin. It first appeared in print in the February 1975 issue of Games & Puzzles. The French suffix -ist, which refers to someone involved in an activity, was conjoined to the root of the Latin word crux (cruc-s) "cross" and the root of French verbale "related to words", a descendant of Latin verbalis, with the same meaning. We cannot trace the history of all three components of this word, so let's take a closer look at -ist. This suffix is composed of the verbal suffix -ize in verbalize (verbalise in the UK) plus the suffix -t. Of course, you may replace -t with -m and produce an abstract noun, verbalism "verbal or linguistic expression". (Now let's verbalize our gratitude to Jerry Gault, a cruciverbalist himself, no doubt, for suggesting today's Good Word.)

[sluggo]

... Today's is a Good Word that we should have run long ago, since I am sure most of our readers are word game fans...

Most mayhaps, certainly not all. I've never been able to get into it myself, though my Mom loves 'em.
Good word though Doc.

[gailr]

The noun for writing or filling in crosswords will be cruciverbalism and solving problems as though they were crossword puzzles will be done (the adverb) cruciverbalistically.

Or, if one is reaching pen-tossing frustration with the clues, cruciverballistically.

-gailr
who prefers the making-up of her own words when expedient to getting het up over someone else's...

[sluggo]

The noun for writing or filling in crosswords will be cruciverbalism and solving problems as though they were crossword puzzles will be done (the adverb) cruciverbalistically.

Or, if one is reaching pen-tossing frustration with the clues, cruciverballistically.

-gailr
who prefers the making-up of her own words when expedient to getting het up over someone else's...

Isn't that how it's done?

[Perry]

Startling
Starting
Staring
String
Sting
Sing
Sin
in
I

[Stargzer]

An alternate:

Startling
Starling
Staring
String
Sting
Ting
Tin
Ti
I

[gailr]

restarted
restated
restate
estate
state
sate
sat
at
a