there are 3 words in the English language that end in "gry" 1. angry 2. hungry 3.? please help?

Answer 1

This is an internet riddle that's been going on for some time.

Claim: Three common words in the English language end with '-gry.'

Status: False.

1 Example:

A RIDDLE THAT'LL KILL YOUR BRAIN!

This is going to make you so MAD!

There are three words in the English language that end in 'gry'. One is 'angry' and the other is 'hungry.' Everyone knows what the third one means, and what it stands for. Everyone uses them every day and, if you listened very carefully, I've given you the third word.

What is it?



Origins: This puzzler may indeed "KILL YOUR BRAIN!" and "make you so MAD!" -- it certainly has left plenty of victims racking their brains and scratching their heads in decades past. If you don't already know the answer to this one, let us help you preserve your sanity and whatever gray matter you may have left by telling you . . . there is no answer. Other than 'hungry' and 'angry,' there is no English word ending with the letters 'gry' which the average native speaker of English would recognize, much less "use every day" (and certainly none which a teller of this riddle could claim to have "already given you").

All other words ending in 'gry' which one might find in even the most comprehensive English dictionary are either archaic terms or obsolete variant spellings, such as:

* aggry: variegated glass beads of ancient manufacture, mentioned by various 19th-century writers as having been found buried in parts of Africa.

* begry: an obsolete 15th-century spelling of the word 'beggary' (i.e., extreme poverty).

* conyngry: an obsolete 17th-century spelling of the even more obsolete word 'conynger' (like 'cunningaire' and 'conygarth,' a term meaning 'rabbit warren').

* gry: a unit of measurement proposed by English philosopher John Locke in his 1690 "Essay Concerning Human Understanding."

* higry-pigry: a corruption (along with 'hickery-pickery' and 'hicra picra') of the Greek 'hiera picra' (approximately 'sacred bitters'), a term for many medicines in the Greek pharmacopoeia, particularly a purgative drug composed of aloes and canella bark.

* iggry: an early 20th century British army slang borrowing from the Arabic 'ijri, meaning 'Hurry up!"

* meagry: a rare and obsolete early 17th-century variant meaning 'meager-looking.'

* menagry: obsolete 18th-century alternate spelling of 'menagerie.'

* nangry: a rare and obsolete 17th-century variant of 'angry.'

* podagry: a 17th-century variant spelling of 'podagra,' a medical lexicon term for 'gout.'

* puggry: a 19th-century alternate spelling of 'puggaree' or 'puggree,' derived from the Hindi 'pagri,' a word for a light turban or head covering worn in India.

* skugry: a 16th-century variant spelling of 'scuggery,' meaning 'concealment' or 'secrecy.'

So, what's the point to this puzzler if it has no answer? Some people maintain that is the point: the question was deliberately conceived as an irritating brain-teaser with no correct answer. The roundabout phrasing of the question suggests otherwise, however -- more likely it was designed as a trick question rather than a trivia question, perhaps one whose wording has been corrupted over time or whose gimmick was only apparent when the question was delivered orally.

The most common guess is that this riddle is indeed a trick question, but the point of the trick has been lost through the rearrangement of the riddle's wording as it has been passed along through the years. Consider an alternate version of this puzzler:

Think of words ending in -GRY. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened carefully, I have already told you what it is.

This version supports the theory that the first two sentences are red herrings; the catch is that the teller is literally asking you to identify the third word of the phrase "the English language" -- there are only three words in the phrase "the English language," the third word ("language") describes something that one uses every day, and "language" is indeed a word which the teller has "already told you." This explanation also supports the contention that this riddle was meant to be presented orally, because a properly punctuated written version would make the gimmick too obvious:

Think of words ending in -GRY. "Angry" and "hungry" are two of them. There are only three words in "the English language." What is the third word? The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened carefully, I have already told you what it is.

Another hypothesis is that the current form of the riddle is a corruption of a yet another version, one which must also be delivered orally for its gimmick to make sense:

There are at least three words in the English language that end in g or y. One of them is "hungry" and another is "angry." There is a third word, a short one, which you probably say every day. If you listened carefully to everything I say, you just heard me say it. What is it?

The catch here is that by offering the examples of "hungry" and "angry," the teller misleads the listener into thinking he's asking for a word ending in "GRY" when he's really asking for a word ending in "G or Y." The correct answer in this case is "say," a short word ending in "y" which the teller had pronounced three times in the course of presenting the riddle.

Some people think this puzzler's ability to continue stumping so many people over the years makes it one of the greatest riddles ever. We disagry.

Answer 2

The best and most comprehensive answer to it comes from the Stumpers discussion list for reference librarians, and we quote from it below.

Here is the question in its correct "puzzle" form.

"Think of words ending in -gry. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everybody uses everyday. If you have listened carefully , I’ve already told you what it is."

The secret here is that the real question is "There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word?" That is, there are only three words in the phrase "the English language". The third word is "language", which is indeed something we use every day. The first two words are "the" and "English".

Having found the answer to the actual riddle, however, you may still wonder if there are any other English words ending in -gry. There are. The intrepid reference librarians found the following answers to the question:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, five words in the English language end in -gry. In addition to the common angry and hungry:

aggry: a glass bead found buried in the earth in Ghana. colored glass beads worn by Africans; a certain type of variegated glass bead found buried in the earth in Ghana and in England

anhungry, an obsolete word for hungry that is allowed to stay in the dictionary because it shows up in Shakespeare.

puggry, (also pugree, puggree, puggaree) a light scarf wound around a hat or helmet to protect the head from the sun.

meagry, of meager appearance.

mawgry -- from Old French: being regarded with displeasure.

gry itself (obsolete, "the grunt of a pig, the dirt under the nail; hence the veriest trifle," further explained as "the smallest unit in Locke’s proposed decimal system of linear measurement, being the tenth of a line, the hundredth of an inch, and the thousandth of a [’philosophical’] foot."),

Answer 3

This question used to be posed as a kind of riddle back in the 70's and has surfaced again. There are quite a number of obsolete words ending in -gry but I only know of one which is still (reputedly) used.
That is: " pugry"-- an obscure form of "puggary", which
means a Hindi turban.

I am including a link about this subject which has all of the obsolete -gry words.

Answer 4

You have mis-stated this old riddle so that it no longer has an answer. It's supposed to be "what's the third word in the English language?" The answer is "language", but "what is the 3?" messes the question up. I assume you didn't know the answer yourself, so didn't understand the importance of using the exact phrase? There are many archaic words in the English language that end in "gry - "pigry" seems most appropriate, but none of them are used everyday by everyone. There is a possible answer of "one" given that you used it three times in the question so by a warped logic that might make it in your mind the "third word", but I don't regard that as a valid riddle.

Answer 5

Merriam Webster (m-w.com) had this as a feature article, at one point. there was one very obsolete, middle (or maybe old, i don't recall) English word that also ended in -gry. since that word isn't really a part of the English language at this point, the stance of said article was that it was a trick question, that relied on a quirk in the wording of the question.

Answer 6

*gry

\Gry\, n. [Gr ? syllable, bit.] 1. A measure equal to one tenth of a line. [Obs.] --Locke.

2. Anything very small, or of little value. [R.]

*puggry

\Pug"gry\, Puggree \Pug"gree\, n. [Written also puggaree, puggeree, etc.] [Hind. pag[.r]i turban.] A light scarf wound around a hat or helmet to protect the head from the sun. [India] --Yule.

A blue-gray felt hat with a gold puggaree. --Kipling.

Answer 7

See this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gry

Answer 8

every

they said it is in the question

it is not gry, it g, r and y

angry= fuming ending in g
hungry= eager ending in r

every ending in y

'every' one uses it 'every'day

Answer 9

No, they are the only two.

Answer 10

There are many different ways to answer this question goto

http://www.fun-with-words.com/word_gry_angry_hungry.html

and pick which answer you like best.