Today's Puzzle
Monday, March 1
I try not to keep too many single-purpose kitchen tools around, but it turns out I have a few. Can you guess what each of these is for?
Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution
What four-letter English word comes from the Latin for
nine and originally referred to 3 p.m.? (Etymology, man, I don't know.)
Solution
The answer is noon; you can read more about its history.
Congratulations to yesterday's winners Aditi, Atticus, Charlie, Connor, Ian, Jacob C., Jessica, Maddy, Peter M., Peter V., Zach Z., and Kate. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!
About This Site
Though he now teaches mathematics, Dr. (né Mr.) Shapiro's first job in a K–12 school was as a lunch monitor in Davis, CA. It was there that he originated the Puzzle of the Day, even rewarding correct answers with tickets in denominations like "15 points" (though without a clear idea of how he'd ultimately redeem these). Dr. Shapiro's favorite puzzle from this pre-professional era was "Tell me the location of the beehive on this campus."
Ten years later, Dr. Shapiro revived Puzzle of the Day at Proof School, writing each day's puzzle on a name tag. After 600 puzzles or so, he was just starting to feel normal about students reading his chest all the time when campus closed and the puzzle, like the rest of our lives, moved online. New puzzles are posted daily on school days.
Want to catch up on old PotDs? There's an archive currently containing puzzles from March to December 2020.