The -gry words Thousands of people write to ask if hungry and angry are the only two words in English that end in -gry. No, they're not. The first time I was asked this (years ago) I fell for it. I was soon put right. The 1983 edition of Walker's Rhyming Dictionary (which was first published in 1775) lists aggry, an adjective relating to glass beads in Africa. The 1972 edition of the Shorter Oxford says "gry 1679 [Greek... explained as meaning (1) the grunt of a pig, (2) the dirt under the nail; hence the veriest trifle]. The smallest unit in Locke's proposed decimal system of linear measurement, being the tenth of a line _ 1813." This question often fools people with dictionaries on CD-ROM: their search engines won't find gry because they're looking for *gry. And actually, another writer told me, there are at least 12 more gry words: "Librarians using the multiple truncation possibilities of the Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM have found these: begry, conygry, higry pigry, iggry, nangry, podagry, skugry, meagry, mawgrym pugggry, an-hungry, and gry itself." Besides, the original question is usually phrased as, allegedly, a very clever trick question. It's so damn clever I can't remember the trick, but since it depends on there being only two -gry words it all falls apart anyway. 2008 UPDATE: This riddle has started circulating again, and a reader was dissatisfied with this answer. So, OK, anyone who insists on this being "solved" this should surf to fun-with-words.com, where they'll find a comprehensive rundown of answers. Return to the Archive Index
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