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Apart from 'angry' and 'hungry', what other common English word ends in '-gry'? Printer Friendly Version


You are told wrong! There isn't one!

This 'riddle' has been circulating in email for years now, in various forms of words, and had appeared in print media before that. Dictionary and reference departments the world over have been plagued by questions about it. It seems to have originated as a trick question, but the wording has become so garbled in subsequent transmission that it is hard to tell what was originally intended.

The most probable answer is that, in the original wording, the question was phrased something like this:

Think of words ending in -gry. 'Angry' and 'hungry' are two of them. What is the third word in the English language? You use it every day, and if you were listening carefully, I've just told you what it is.
The answer, of course, is 'language' (the third word in 'the English language').

There are several other English words ending in -gry which are listed in the complete Oxford English Dictionary, but none of them could be described as common. They include the trivial oddities un-angry and a-hungry, and

aggry: aggry beads, according to various 19th-century writers, are coloured glass beads found buried in the ground in parts of Africa.
begry: a 15th-century spelling of beggary.
conyngry: a 17th-century spelling of the obsolete word conynger, meaning 'rabbit warren', which survives in old English field names such as 'Conery' and 'Coneygar'.
gry: the name for a hundredth of an inch in a long-forgotten decimal system of measurement devised by the philosopher John Locke (and presumably pronounced to rhyme with 'cry').
higry-pigry: an 18th-century rendition of the drug hiera picra.
iggry: an old army slang word meaning 'hurry up', borrowed from Arabic.
meagry: a rare obsolete word meaning 'meagre-looking'.
menagry: an 18th-century spelling of menagerie.
nangry: a rare 17th-century spelling of angry.
podagry: a 17th-century spelling of podagra, a medical term for gout.
puggry: a 19th-century spelling of the Hindi word pagri (in English usually puggaree or puggree), referring either to a turban or to a piece of cloth worn around a sun-helmet.
skugry: 16th-century spelling of the dialect word scuggery meaning 'secrecy' (the faint echo of 'skulduggery' is quite accidental!).

2006-12-19 02:40:01 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 9 3

Another English word ending in "gry" is ONEGRY which means a state of being alone and unhappy

2006-12-19 03:07:22 · answer #2 · answered by BARROWMAN 6 · 1 0

The other word is Gry. Here is the definiton:

Gry
A measure equal to one tenth of a line. [Obs.] --Locke.

2006-12-19 04:24:17 · answer #3 · answered by Riss 4 · 0 0

every

The logic is -

There are three words, ending g, r and y. The first is "fuming," ending in g and meaning angry. The second is "eager," ending in r and meaning hungry. The third is "every," ending in y and clearly something that the word "everyone" uses.

2006-12-19 02:40:58 · answer #4 · answered by Rich T 6 · 2 3

Aggry, as in aggry beads made in Africa.

But I know what you're getting at. Well done AL

2006-12-19 02:50:08 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

The third word is hungry.

Aggry is a word in Websters.

2006-12-19 02:42:47 · answer #6 · answered by Bert 4 · 0 1

'Gry' is the third word.

2006-12-19 03:34:37 · answer #7 · answered by Biker Babe 3 · 0 1

oooohhh yer little bugger....thats got me thinking, there probably aint one but im reaching for my dictionary!!!

2006-12-19 02:42:05 · answer #8 · answered by sarah3000 1 · 0 0

ENERGY...You did not say the letters had to be int he same order!..lol...

s

2006-12-19 02:51:07 · answer #9 · answered by Littlebit 6 · 0 0

No 'what' is not the other.
What ends in 'hat'.

2006-12-19 02:43:01 · answer #10 · answered by TisIEclair 2 · 0 0

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