THREES by Category

This post is the first of a series of posts for THREES Left (926). Actually, even though I’ve already addressed the THREES JQXZ (89) list, I’m going to pre­tend I haven’t and just start over with the entire list of 1015 three-letter words. I’m not going to approach things alpha­bet­i­cally – instead, at least ini­tially, I’m going to approach this list by cat­e­gory (using cat­e­gories that I’ve made up).  Here’s a link to a com­plete list of three-letter words arranged alpha­bet­i­cally: THREES ALL (1015) Alpha.

First, a bit few bits of trivia about the THREES. 778 of the 1015 words on this list can be formed by adding a let­ter to a two-letter word.  Specifically, 528 words can be formed by adding a let­ter to the left (or front), and 539 words can be formed by adding a let­ter to the right (or back; elim­i­nat­ing dupli­cates yields 778 unique words, given that some three-letter words can be formed either way, e.g. HOS can be formed by either adding an H to OS, or adding an S to HO).  786 of the three-letter words take an S to form an accept­able four-letter word. The first time I looked at this list, I high­lighted all the three-letter words that I either didn’t know or wouldn’t have felt con­fi­dent enough about to play in a com­pet­i­tive Scrabble set­ting – when I fin­ished, I had high­lighted 511 of the 1015 words on the list.

Organizing the three-letter words into cat­e­gories is use­ful.  Here’s my first category:

Alternative or Variant Spellings (of words you already know):

 AFF  off [adv]
–ANE– one (a num­ber) [n –S]
–FER– for (directed or sent to) [prep]
–GAN  GIN, to begin (to start (to set out)) [v]
–GAE  to go (to move along) [v GAED, GANE or GAEN, GAEING or GAUN, GAES]
 GEY  very [adv]
 GIE  to give (to trans­fer freely to another’s pos­ses­sion) [v GIED, GIEN, GIEING, GIES]
–HAE– to have (to be in pos­ses­sion of) [v HAED, HAEN, HAEING, HAES]
–MON– man (an adult human male) [n MEN]
–MUN– man; fel­low [n –S]
–NAE– no; not [adv]
–NOM– a name [n –S]
 NOO– now [adv]
–SAB  to sob (to cry with a con­vul­sive catch­ing of the breath) [v SABBED, SABBING, SABS]
 SAC  a pouch­like struc­ture in an ani­mal or plant [n –S]
–SAE  so [adv]
–TAE– to (in the direc­tion of) [prep]
 TWA  two (a num­ber) [n –S]
 UPO– upon (on) [prep]
–VOX  voice [n VOCES]
–WAB  a web [n –S]
–WAE  woe (tremen­dous grief) [n –S]
–WAT  wet (cov­ered or sat­u­rated with a liq­uid) [adj WATTER, WATTEST]; a hare [n –S]
–WHA  who (what or which per­son or per­sons) [pron]
 WOT– to know (to have a true under­stand­ing of) [v WOTTED, WOTTING, WOTS]

This is a fun lit­tle list.  Notice the dif­fer­ent forms for GAE, GIE and HAE – the pat­tern is the same (for the most part): +D, +N and +ING, +S.  That gives you most of the forms, although GAE has two addi­tional or “irreg­u­lar” forms: GANE and GAUN.  You just have to remem­ber those. MUN takes an S; MON does not (the plural of MON is MEN, so it works just like MAN; Think of MUN, on the other hand, as syn­onomous with “fel­low,” which does take an S). The AE as a “sub­sti­tute” for O helps out quite a bit: GAE, NAE, SAE, TAE, and WAE – you just have to remem­ber that of the words on this list, only GAE is a verb and can be con­ju­gated. This list should make you won­der why some words “caught” on and other words didn’t. After all, WOT seems like a sim­pler word that KNOW – too bad it didn’t stick.

Monetary Units:

 ATT– a mon­e­tary unit of Laos [n ATT]
 AVO  a mon­e­tary unit of Macao [n AVOS]
 ECU  an old French coin [n –S]
 FIL  a coin of Iraq and Jordan [n –S]
 HAO– a mon­e­tary unit of Vietnam [n HAO]
–JUN  a coin of North Korea [n JUN]
 LEK  a mon­e­tary unit of Albania [n LEKS or LEKE or LEKU]; to assem­ble for com­pet­i­tive dis­plays dur­ing the mat­ing sea­son [v LEKKED, LEKKING, LEKS]
 LEU  a mon­e­tary unit of Romania [n LEI]
 LEV  a mon­e­tary unit of Bulgaria [n LEVA]
–LIT– the litas (a for­mer mon­e­tary unit of Lithuania) [n –S]
 PUL  a coin of Afghanistan [n PULS or PULI]
–PYA  a cop­per coin of Burma [n –S]
 REI– an erro­neous English form for a for­mer Portuguese coin [n –S]
 SAU  xu (a mon­e­tary unit of Vietnam) [n SAU]
–SEN  a mon­e­tary unit of Japan [n SEN]
–SOM– a mon­e­tary unit of Kyrgyzstan [n SOMS]
 SOU– a for­mer French coin [n –S]
 ZUZ  an ancient Hebrew sil­ver coin [n ZUZIM]

Units of Measure:

–COR  an ancient unit of mea­sure [n –S]
–HIN– a Hebrew unit of liq­uid mea­sure [n –S]
–KAB– an ancient Hebrew unit of mea­sure [n –S]
–KOR  a Hebrew unit of mea­sure [n –S]
–KOS  a land mea­sure in India [n KOS]
–OKA  a Turkish unit of weight [n –S]
 OKE  oka (a Turkish unit of weight) [n –S]
–SER  a unit of weight of India [n –S]
–TOD– a British unit of weight [n –S]

These cat­e­gories exem­plify what my wife refers to as “crap” Scrabble words – i.e. words that don’t have any util­ity out­side of the minds of Scrabble play­ers (unless you plan on trav­el­ing to one of these coun­tries, or play­ing extreme trivia games). Nevertheless, these words can be par­tic­u­larly use­ful because a good per­cent­age of them are the prod­uct of sur­prise hooks from tw0-letter words (like AT – >ATT, or OR – >COR, etc.). You’ll be sur­prised how impor­tant some of these words can be when you have a bingo on your rack and you’re look­ing for a place to hook it.

So how do you mem­o­rize these words? In other cases, I rely on def­i­n­i­tions and hook chains – but that doesn’t seem to help much here. Here’s are some suggestions.

This is fairly well-kept secret, but the word ATT really doesn’t exist – a fact that wasn’t dis­cov­ered until after the OSPD4 had already been released. As it turns out, the CEO of AT&T is a Scrabble fan and is the uncle of one of the mem­bers of the dic­tio­nary com­mit­tee. You didn’t hear that here.

The let­ter V is tough to play – but at least in this case, V steps up, along with B, D, G, P and Z to give us this list:

–ABO– an abo­rig­ine (an orig­i­nal inhab­i­tant) — an offen­sive term [n –S]
–ADO– bustling excite­ment [n ADOS]
–AGO– in the past [adv]
 APO  a type of pro­tein (a nitroge­nous organic com­pound) [n APOS]
 AVO  a mon­e­tary unit of Macao [n AVOS]
 AZO  con­tain­ing nitro­gen [adj]

It’s only fair, if AZO is a word, the AVO should be one too.

COR and KOR form a pair (that should help a lit­tle).  COR is also a pretty fecund – no front hooks, but quite a few back hooks (CORD, CORE, CORF, CORK, CORM, CORN, CORS, CORY).  CORF is a wagon used in a mine – and should be enough to help you remem­ber COR.  If you add a Y, you get a for­mer mon­e­tary unit of Guinea (CORY).

The nat­ural ten­dency if you have a C on your rack is to look for an E to put after it (ACE, ICE).  If you ignore that impulse, and you’re look­ing for a three-letter word with C sand­wiched between two vow­els, there are only two other options: ECU and OCA (a South American herb). And besides, ECU just sounds French.

EDH just look like it’s Old English (and ED is a fairly com­mon prod­uct of par­al­lel plays, so know­ing that an H can be hooked onto it can come in handy). FIL or FILL, either way. If you tell some­one to FIL your glass, they may only fill it part of the way (some­how this absurd lit­tle idea actu­ally helps me). It takes HAO to fol­low TAO. I need a HIN, HON, if I’m going to cook this HEN for the HUN. JUN is one of those handy J words that you just need to learn. You can catch a CAB at the CURB, or pay a KAB to KERB (to pro­vide with CURBING). If you’re a boxer, you want KOS, although it’s really spelled KAYOS, but who’s pay­ing atten­tion. You can go to a bar and watch all the frat boys LEKKING (because they’d all rather be NECKING) – or you can remem­ber that LEK (the mon­e­tary unit) has three plu­rals – LEKS, LEKE, LEKU. And that takes us about half way down the cat­e­gory list – more tomorrow.

If you have a hard time remem­ber­ing how to spell LIEU (place, stead), then LEU (and the plural, LEI, which is also a wreath of flow­ers) give you a safety net. Or, think of LEU of LIEU with­out the I.

Man, he was so LIT (i.e. intox­i­cated) that he thought he could LEV (i.e. lev­i­tate). You’ve already learned OCA, why not spell it with a K: OKA? Or, just remem­ber that if you have an A, K and an O, it doesn’t mat­ter where you put the K, as long as the O comes before the A: KOA, OKA, OAK. And if you know OKA, then you can’t for­get OKE (think of it as a syn­onym for OAK). Associate PUL with PULL – remem­ber the plural is either PULS or PULI. It takes PYA to buy a RYA (a Scandinavian hand­woren rug); it takes REI to buy a LEI or see a SEI (a RORQUAL or large whale). SAU is a vari­ant of XU. Or maybe you’ve pur­chased camp­ing gear at REI (using REI, of course). Zen is not an accept­able word – but SEN is (and it rymes with quite a few other three-letter words: BEN, DEN, FEN, GEN, HEN, KEN, MEN, PEN, TEN, WEN, YEN). SER is the “to be” verb in Spanish – of course it’s a Scrabble word. That’s TOM, a ROM with a SOM. ECU sounds French, so does SOU. If CORY (a for­mer mon­e­tary unit of Guinea) is a word, then so is TOD. ZUZ is a pretty use­less word – you’d have to use a blank to play it, but it has a cool plural (ZUZIM).

If these asso­ci­a­tions don’t work for you, then let me know what does (and email me so I can post it here). One more com­ment before mov­ing to another cateogry. You should also remem­ber which of these words take S (and which don’t) and which have more inter­est­ing plural forms. ATT, HOA, JUN, KOS, SAU, and SEN don’t change in the plural (e.g. ATT is the plural of ATT).  More inter­est­ing plu­rals: LEU – >LEI, LEV – >LEVA, PUL – >PULI, ZUZ – >ZUZIM (and don’t for­get LEK – >LEKS, LEKE, LEKU). Everything else takes an S – even EDH – >EDHS.

As far as mem­o­riza­tion goes, this group of words is about as dif­fi­cult as things get.  Let’s move to an eas­ier category.

Interjections:

–AAH– to exclaim in amaze­ment, joy, or sur­prise [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–AHA– used to express sur­prise, tri­umph, or deri­sion [interj]
 AHS– AH, aah (to exclaim in amaze­ment, joy, or sur­prise) [v]
–BAH– an excla­ma­tion of dis­gust [interj]
 BRR  brrr (used to indi­cate that one feels cold) [interj]
–FOH  faugh (used to express dis­gust) [interj]
–HAH– ha (a sound of sur­prise) [n –S]
–HMM– used to express thought­ful con­sid­er­a­tion [interj]
–HUH  used to express sur­prise [interj]
 ICK  used to express dis­gust [interj]
–OHO– used to express sur­prise or exul­ta­tion [interj]
–PAH– used as an excla­ma­tion of dis­gust [interj]
–POH  used to express dis­gust [interj]
–RAH  used to cheer on a team or player [interj]
–SHA– used to urge silence [interj]
 SHH– sh (used to urge silence) [interj]
 TSK  to utter an excla­ma­tion of annoy­ance [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–UMM– um (used to indi­cate hes­i­ta­tion) [interj]
–YAH– used as an excla­ma­tion of dis­gust [interj]
 ZZZ  used to sug­gest the sound of snor­ing [interj]

You’re prob­a­bly famil­iar with most of these.  Remember that you can do quite a bit with S, H, A – a total of 10 dif­fer­ent words, six of which are on this list (quick, can you list all ten?).  Here they are: AAH, AHA, AAS, HAH, AHS, ASH, HAS, SHA, ASS, SHH.  And the fun even con­tin­ues with four-letter words: HAHA, AAHS, HAHS, HASH, SHAH, SASH, SASS (def­i­n­i­tions below):

–HAHA– a fence set in a ditch [n –S]
–AAHS– AAH, to exclaim in amaze­ment, joy, or sur­prise [v]
–HAHS– HAH, ha (a sound of sur­prise) [n]
–HASH– to mince (to cut into very small pieces) [v –ED, –ING, –ES]
–SHAH– an Iranian ruler [n –S]
–SASH  to fur­nish with a frame in which glass is set [v –ED, –ING, –ES]
–SASS  to talk impu­dently to [v –ED, –ING, –ES]

Other inter­est­ing hooks (down to ICK):

 BAHT– a mon­e­tary unit of Thailand [n –S]
 BRRR– used to indi­cate that one feels cold [interj]
–DAHS– DAH, a dash in Morse code [n]
 FOHN– foehn (a warm, dry wind) [n –S]

And there is an inter­est­ing hook chain here: AH – >DAH – >ODAH – >ODAHS.

 AH  aah (to exclaim in amaze­ment, joy, or sur­prise) [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–DAH  a dash in Morse code [n –S]
–ODAH– oda (a room in a harem) [n –S]

For some rea­son, ICK has a raft of front hooks (and one back hook, ICKY). The moral of story here is don’t play ICK below or to the right of bonus spaces.  Here are the front hooks:

–DICK  to waste time — an offen­sive term [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–HICK– a rural per­son [n –S] : HICKISH [adj]
–KICK  to strike out with the foot or feet [v –ED, –ING, –S] : KICKABLE [adj]
–LICK  to pass the tongue over the sur­face of [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–MICK– an Irishman — an offen­sive term [n –S]
–NICK  to make a shal­low cut in [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–PICK– to select (to choose (to take by pref­er­ence)) [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–RICK  to pile hay in stacks [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–SICK– affected with dis­ease or ill health [adj SICKER, SICKEST]; to sic (to urge to attack) [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–TICK– to make a recur­rent click­ing sound [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–WICK  a bun­dle of loosely twisted fibers in a can­dle or oil lamp [n –S]

Back to the inter­jec­tion list.  OHO and two close rel­a­tives: ONO (a large mack­erel) and OXO (con­tain­ing oxy­gen).  There are four words here that do not have any vow­els: BRR, HMM, and SHH, and ZZZ.  You already know three tw0-letter words with­out vow­els: HM, MM, SH.  There are only 18 in the entire Scrabble OWL2+LWL:

 BRR  brrr (used to indi­cate that one feels cold) [interj]
 BRRR– used to indi­cate that one feels cold [interj]
 CRWTH  an ancient stringed musi­cal instru­ment [n –S]
 CWM  a cirque (a deep, steep-walled basin on a moun­tain) [n –S]
 HM  hmm (used to express thought­ful con­sid­er­a­tion) [interj]
–HMM– used to express thought­ful con­sid­er­a­tion [interj]
 MM  used to express assent or sat­is­fac­tion [interj]
 NTH  per­tain­ing to an indef­i­nitely large ordi­nal num­ber [adj]
 PFFT  used to express a sud­den end­ing [interj]
 PHPHT  pht (used as an expres­sion of mild anger or annoy­ance) [interj]
 PHT  used as an expres­sion of mild anger or annoy­ance [interj]
 PSST  used to attract someone’s atten­tion [interj]
 PST  psst (used to attract someone’s atten­tion) [interj]
 SH  used to urge silence [interj]
 SHH– sh (used to urge silence) [interj]
 TSK  to utter an excla­ma­tion of annoy­ance [v –ED, –ING, –S]
 TSKTSK  to tsk (to utter an excla­ma­tion of annoy­ance) [v –ED, –ING, –S]
 ZZZ  used to sug­gest the sound of snor­ing [interj]

Letters:

–AIN– ayin (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 ARS– AR, the let­ter R [n]
–BES– beth (a Hebrew let­ter) [n BESES]
 CEE  the let­ter C [n –S]
–CHI  a Greek let­ter [n –S]
 DEE– the let­ter D [n –S]
 EDH– an Old English let­ter [n –S]
 EFF– ef (the let­ter F) [n –S]
 EFS– EF, the let­ter F [n]
 ELL– the let­ter L [n –S]
 EMS– EM, the let­ter M [n]
 ESS– the let­ter S [n –ES]
–ETA– a Greek let­ter [n –S]
–FEH– peh (pe (a Hebrew let­ter)) [n –S]
–FES– FE, a Hebrew let­ter [n]
–HEH– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
 KAF– kaph (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–KAY– the let­ter K [n KAYS]
–KHI  chi (a Greek let­ter) [n –S]
 KUE  the let­ter Q [n –S]
–MEM– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–MUS– MU, a Greek let­ter [n]
–NUS– NU, a Greek let­ter [n]
–PEH– pe (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–PHI  a Greek let­ter [n –S]
–PIS– PI, a Greek let­ter [n]
–PSI  a Greek let­ter [n –S]
–RHO  a Greek let­ter [n RHOS]
 TAU– a Greek let­ter [n –S]
 TAV– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–TET  teth (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 VAU  vav (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 VAV  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–VAW  vav (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 VEE  the let­ter V [n –S]
–WAW  vav (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–WYE  the let­ter Y [n –S]
–XIS– XI, a Greek let­ter [n]
–YOD– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–ZED  the let­ter Z [n –S]
 ZEE  the let­ter Z [n –S]

Letters are a fairly easy way to add use­ful words to your vocab­u­lary.  The English let­ters are par­tic­u­larly easy (the ones that show up on this list are: AR, CEE, DEE, EF or EFF, EL or ELL, EM, ES or ESS, KAY, KUE, VEE, WYE, ZED, and ZEE).  Then there are the Greek let­ters (on this list: CHI, ETA, KHI or CHI, MU, NU, PHI, PI, PSI, RHO, TAU and XI).  The Hebrew let­ters are a lit­tle harder (and many have a num­ber of dif­fer­ent variants):

–AIN– ayin (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 ALEF– aleph (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 ALEPH  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
 ALIF  an Arabic let­ter [n –S]
–AYIN  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–BES– beth (a Hebrew let­ter) [n BESES]
–BETH– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–CHETH  heth (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 DALEDH  daleth (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 DALETH  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
 FE  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–FEH– peh (pe (a Hebrew let­ter)) [n –S]
 GIMEL  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
 HE  a male per­son (a human being) [n –S]
–HEH– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–HET– heth (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–HETH– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
 KAPH  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–KHET  heth (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–KHETH– heth (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 KOPH– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
 LAMED– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–MEM– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–NUN– a woman belong­ing to a reli­gious order [n –S]
 PE  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–PEH– pe (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 QOPH  koph (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 RESH– a Hebrew let­ter [n –ES]
 SADE– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
 SADHE  sade (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 SADI– sade (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 SAMECH  samek (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 SAMEK– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
 SAMEKH– samek (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–SHIN  to climb by grip­ping and pulling alter­nately with the hands and legs [v SHINNED, SHINNING, SHINS]
–SIN– to com­mit a sin (an offense against reli­gious or moral law) [v SINNED, SINNING, SINS]
 TAV– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–TET  teth (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–TETH– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–TSADE  sade (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–TSADI  sade (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 VAU  vav (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
 VAV  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–VAW  vav (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–WAW  vav (a Hebrew let­ter) [n –S]
–YOD– a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]
–ZAYIN  a Hebrew let­ter [n –S]

Some of these let­ters are English words (see def­i­n­i­tions above).  This list may look intim­i­dat­ing.  It’s eas­ier if you group the words by let­ter.  For exam­ple, VAU, VAV, VAW, WAW are four vari­ants of the same let­ter.  ALEF, ALEPH, ALIF are the same.  Here are the Hebrew let­ters grouped by let­ter (and listed alphabetically):

ALEF, ALEPH, ALIF
BES, BETH
GIMEL
DALEDH, DALETH
HE, HEH
VAU, VAV, VAW, WAW
ZAYIN
CHETH, HET, HETH, KHET, KHETH
TET, TETH
YOD, YODH
CAPH, KAF, KAPH, KHAF, KHAPH
LAMED, LAMEDH
MEM
NUN
SAMECH, SAMEK, SAMEKH
AIN, AYIN
FE, FEH, PE, PEH
SADE, SADHE, SADI, TSADE, TSADI
KOPH, QOPH
RESH
SIN
SHIN
TAV

Here is the com­plete Greek alphabet:

ALPHA
BETA
GAMMA
DELTA
EPSILON
ZETA
ETA
THETA
IOTA
KAPPA
LAMBDA
MU
NU
XI
OMICRON
PI
RHO
SIGMA
TAU
UPSILON
PHI
CHI
PSI
OMEGA

Here is the com­plete English alphabet:

BEE
CEE
DEE
EF, EFF
GEE
AITCH
JAY
KAY
EL, ELL
EM
EN
PEE
KUE
AR
ES, ESS
TEE
VEE
EX
WYE
ZED, ZEE, IZZARD

Plants, Animals and Geography:

First, the “plant” words:

–AAL– an East Indian shrub [n –S]
 ALS– AL, an East Indian tree [n]
 CEP  cepe (a large mush­room) [n –S]
–COS  a vari­ety of let­tuce [n –ES]
 ELM– a decid­u­ous tree [n –S]
 ERS– ervil (a European vetch) [n –ES]
–KAT– an ever­green shrub [n –S]
–KEX  a dry, hol­low stalk [n –ES]
 KOA  a tim­ber tree [n –S]
 LEA  a meadow (a tract of grass­land) [n –S]
–MAW– to mow (to cut down stand­ing herbage) [v MAWED, MAWN, MAWING, MAWS]
–MOR– a for­est humus [n –S]
–MOW– to cut down stand­ing herbage [v MOWED, MOWN, MOWING, MOWS]
 OCA  a South American herb [n –S]
–QAT  kat (an ever­green shrub) [n –S]
–SOY– the soy­bean (the seed of a cul­ti­vated Asian herb) [n SOYS]
 TIL– the sesame plant [n –S]
–UDO  a Japanese herb [n UDOS]
 URD  an annual bean grown in India [n –S]
 YEW– an ever­green tree or shrub [n –S]

Now, the “ani­mal” words:

–AHI– a marine food fish [n –S]
–AIS– AI, a three-toed sloth [n]
 ANI– a trop­i­cal American bird [n –S]
 ARF– a bark­ing sound [n –S]
 ASP– a ven­omous snake [n –S]
 ASS– a hoofed mam­mal [n –ES]
 AUK  a div­ing seabird [n –S]
–BAA– to bleat (to utter the cry of a sheep) [v –ED, –ING, –S]
–BAY– to howl (to cry like a dog) [v –ED, –ING, –S]
 BOA– a large snake [n –S]
 BOT– the larva of a bot­fly [n –S]
–BUT  a flat­fish (any of an order of marine fishes) [n –S]
–CAW  to utter the sound of a crow [v –ED, –ING, –S]
 COO  to make the sound of a dove [v COOED, COOING, COOS]
 CUD  a por­tion of food to be chewed again [n –S]
 CUR  a mon­grel dog [n –S]
–DOE– a female deer (a rumi­nant mam­mal) [n –S]
–DOR– a black European bee­tle [n –S]
–EEL  a snake­like fish [n –S]
 EFT– a newt (a small sala­man­der) [n –S]
–EMU– a large, flight­less bird [n –S]
 ERN– erne (a sea eagle) [n –S]
–EWE  a female sheep (a rumi­nant mam­mal) [n –S]
–GED  a food fish [n –S]
–GID  a dis­ease of sheep [n –S]
–GNU  a large ante­lope [n –S]
 GOA– an Asian gazelle [n –S]
–HOD– a portable trough [n –S]
 ICH  a dis­ease of cer­tain fishes [n ICHS]
–JAY  a corvine bird [n JAYS]
–KAE– a bird resem­bling a crow [n –S]
 KEA  a par­rot [n –S]
 KOB  a red­dish brown ante­lope [n –S]
–KOI  a large and col­or­ful fish [n –S]
 LAC– a resinous sub­stance secreted by cer­tain insects [n –S]
–MEL– honey [n –S]
 MEW– to con­fine (to shut within an enclo­sure) [v –ED, –ING, –S]
 MOA– an extinct flight­less bird [n –S]
 MOO– to make the deep, moan­ing sound of a cow [v –ED, –ING, –S]
 NEB– the beak of a bird [n –S]
–ONO– a large mack­erel [n ONOS]
 ORC– a marine mam­mal [n –S]
 PUR  to purr (to utter a low, vibrant sound) [v PURRED, PURRING, PURS]
 REE– the female Eurasian sand­piper [n –S]
 ROC  a leg­endary bird of prey [n –S]
–ROE  the mass of eggs within a female fish [n –S]
 SEI  a rorqual (a large whale) [n –S]
 TEG  a year­ling sheep [n –S]
–TIT– a small bird [n –S]
 TUI  a bird of New Zealand [n –S]
–UTA– any of a genus of large lizards [n –S]

And finally, the “geog­ra­phy” words:

–AAS– AA, rough, cin­dery lava [n]
–AIT– a small island [n –S]
 ALP– a high moun­tain [n –S]
–CAY  a small low island [n CAYS]
 COL  a depres­sion between two moun­tains [n –S]
–FEN– a marsh (a tract of low, wet land) [n –S]
–FON  foehn (a warm, dry wind) [n –S]
–KOP  a hill [n –S]
 LEE  shel­ter from the wind [n –S]
 LEY  lea (a meadow (a tract of grass­land)) [n LEYS]
–LIN– linn (a water­fall) [n –S]
–OES– OE, a whirl­wind off the Faeroe islands [n]
 OSE– an esker (a nar­row ridge of gravel and sand) [n –S]
–PED– a nat­ural soil aggre­gate [n –S]
 RIA  a long, nar­row inlet [n –S]
–TOR– a high, craggy hill [n –S]
–VOE  a small bay, creek, or inlet [n –S]
 VUG  a small cav­ity in a rock or lode [n –S]

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