10 Word Puzzles With Deeper Meanings

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Meaning associations between words have always fascinated people. Aristotle was among the first to study the connection between metaphorical language and riddles, coining the term metaphor to refer to the ways in which we use meaning associations to make sense of abstract concepts. For example, we typically resort to metaphor to make sense of the concept of life—“life is a stage,” “life is an enigma,” “life is a journey,” and so on.

The number of ingenious puzzles that have been invented to challenge our sense of word meaning is quite large, attesting to the enormous appeal that wordplay in general holds for us. The 2006 documentary Wordplay, directed by Patrick Creadon, is an enlightening lesson on the nature of this appeal The movie focuses on Will Shortz, The New York Times puzzle editor, founder of an annual crossword tournament, and one of the best contemporary puzzle-makers. The movie tracks Shortz’s lifelong interest in puzzles, while showing how the tournament he founded in 1978 attracts people from all walks of life.

One word-association puzzle that does not get the same kind of attention as some others do is called word chains, or linkwords. The objective is to find a word that can be linked to two other given words, so that when it is added to the end of the first word and to the start of the second, a legitimate new word or phrase is produced each time.

In the 10 puzzles below, you are given two words separated by a blank space. You have to fill that space with a word that produces a legitimate word or expression when linked to both the given words. Here’s an example:

KEY _______ LINK

What word fits in the space? One possibility is CHAIN, which produces two legitimate words: KEYCHAIN and CHAINLINK. That’s all there is to it.

(Needless to say, as with my previous posts, you might come up with different answers than the ones I provide here. Please do send these along to me via the Comments section.)

1. LOVE _______ BAR
2. SUN _______ BULB
3. WILD _______ STYLE
4. GENTLE _______ KIND
5. HONEY _______ SHINE
6. BASE _______ PARK
7. TOWN _______ YARD
8. EVER _______ HOUSE
9. PRIME _______ LINE
10. FRIEND _______ YARD

From childhood, we are instinctively drawn to wordplay, intrigued by the clever language with which riddles, for example, are composed. And yet, no one ever discusses with us what a riddle is, nor are we taught how to solve it. We are simply fascinated by how words make meaning for us. I believe that wordplay puzzles, like the ones here, shed a little light into the nature of word meaning. As the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in 1953: “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word 'meaning,' it can be defined thus: The meaning of a word is its use in the language.”

Answers below ....

• ^{1. LOVE HANDLE BAR: love handle (lovehandle), handlebar}
• ^{2. SUN LIGHT BULB: sunlight, light bulb (lightbulb)}
• ^{3. WILD LIFE STYLE: wildlife, lifestyle}
• ^{4. GENTLE MAN KIND: gentleman, mankind}
• ^{5. HONEY MOON SHINE: honeymoon, moonshine}
• ^{6. BASE BALL PARK: baseball, ballpark}
• ^{7. TOWN SHIP YARD: township, shipyard}
• ^{8. EVER GREEN HOUSE: evergreen, greenhouse}
• ^{9. PRIME TIME LINE: primetime (prime time), timeline (time line)}
• ^{10. FRIEND SHIP YARD: friendship, shipyard}