TRIM AND FIT I

GAMES Magazine

June, 2000

Stephen Sniderman

[Note from JA: This is the first of nine puzzles I will be posting by brilliant constructor Stephen Sniderman. Though given a "mildly challenging" rating by the GAMES editors, I found these puzzle to be very, and in some cases, extremely difficult.] 

Choose a word from the left-hand column and trim one, two, or three consecutive letters from the front or back (but not both). Then, without changing the order of any letters, fit a word from the right-hand column between two of the remaining letters to form a new, longer word. 

Example 1: 

Given the word CROCUS in the left-hand column and TOP in the right-hand column. If you drop  the C and R from CROCUS, you are left with OCUS. If you insert the word TOP between the C and U, you get OCTOPUS - which is the answer.

 

Example 2:

Given the word SALE in the left-hand column and EVER in the right-hand column. If you drop the  E from SALE, you are left with SAL. If you insert the word EVER between the S and A, you get SEVERAL. (Note: If the word PAR were also in the right-hand column, you could not drop the AL from SALE and insert PAR between the S and E to get SPARE - because you are only allowed to drop consecutive letter(s) from the beginning or end of the given word.) 

 

The answers to the clues will be shown with the new word in capital letters, the inserted word in parentheses, and the dropped letters in lower case. The answers to the examples would be shown as crOC(TOP)US and S(EVER)ALe

1. AURA               MIST

2. CRAG               VETO

3. SHADY            MATE

4. COUSIN           HOLE

5. ARCHERY       VISOR

Answers:

 

1. AMATEUR - A(MATE)URa

2. CHOLERA - C(HOLE)RAg

3. ADVISORY - shAD(VISOR)Y

4. COVETOUS - CO(VETO)USin

5. CHEMISTRY - arCHE(MIST)RY