How it works
These word trivia questions are about English words, in six rounds: where words come from, words English borrowed, the oddest and the made-up, names for things you cannot name, letters and the alphabet, and kinds of words.
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Six rounds for people who like words
Where words come from has the cardigan, the candidate in shining white and the wind-eye that became a window. Words English borrowed runs from tomato and mosquito to raccoon and aardvark. The longest, the oddest and the made-up covers lipograms, lorem ipsum and the ghost word dord. Names for things you cannot name hands over the retronym, the demonym and the zarf. Letters and the alphabet explains thorn, ash and the long s. Kinds of words, plurals and dictionaries ends with oxen, Webster and rhyming slang.
At a book club or a word-game night
Tap a choice to see the right answer, a line on why, and the page it was read on. Questions come in tens, and Scored round asks 20 before it marks them.
Questions and answers
What are some easy word trivia questions?
Mosquito is a Spanish and Portuguese word: what does it mean? What is the name of the letter W? In rhyming slang, what does "apples and pears" mean? The answers are little fly, double-u and stairs.
What is the longest word in English?
The longest published in a popular dictionary is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, with 45 letters. Everett M. Smith, then president of the National Puzzlers' League, coined it in 1935.
Why is there a b in debt?
It was never sounded. The b was put into debt, and into doubt, to match Latin cognates such as debit and dubitable; both words had come from French, as dette and doute.
How were the answers checked?
Each was read on October 3, 2026 in the Wikipedia article linked under it, usually the article on the word or the thing itself. An origin the article calls unknown, disputed or only likely is asked in those words.