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Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Wednesday, March 24

What's the common connection?

   


     Note: Clicking "Submit" will send your response to Dr. Shapiro.

Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

A "kangaroo word" carries around its own synonym. Here are some examples: Now for the puzzle:
  1. Can you spot the "joeys" riding in the words illuminated (3 letters), inheritor (4), municipality (4), persnickety (5), prematurely (5)?
  2. What are these kangaroo words?
    • Easier:    blo__om  /  _vac_ate  /  _ra_tio_  /  gi_ant__
    • Harder:    de_a___d  /  de__b__ate  /  __no__ble  /  sa_v__e  /  d__ea__d
    • Hardest:    a_no_mal__y  /  ra__u_c__ous  /  ___s__u_e  /  __is__

Solution
  1. illuminated, inheritor, municipality, persnickety, prematurely
    • blossom, evacuate, fraction, gigantic
    • departed, deliberate, honorable, salvage, deceased
    • abnormality, rambunctious, prosecute, exists
I hope no one is indigo/magenta–colorblind. 🤪

Here's a BIG list of kangaroo words! It's interesting to try to sort them into "random coincidence" and "actually related".

Atticus wrote: "It seems like 'dead' is a common baby name in the kangaroo world." Examples he gave include decapitated, decimated, dehydrated, disappeared, deanimated, degraded, decelerated, passed-expiration-date, deer-in-headlights, derailed ("if you're a train"), and differentiated ("if you're a constant function").

Congratulations to yesterday's perfect scorers Atticus, Graham, and the Greggs, and to partial solvers Peter M., Peter V., Ena, Connor, Summer, Maddy, Ian, Jacob C., 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.