Brain Teasers
Word Grid
Arrange 25 five-letter words in a 5-by-5 grid. The five words in each row share a common letter. The five words in each column share a common letter. The five words in each diagonal share a common letter. There are 12 different common letters.
The words are: amuse, charm, clasp, cough, crypt, drive, dunce, first, fresh, graft, grime, heavy, money, pixel, pluck, power, quiet, shark, smirk, stein, syrup, tidal, twice, weigh, yearn.
One letter of each word is provided in the grid.
Row 1: k a s g h
Row 2: d n e c u
Row 3: r y a l k
Row 4: t p f d e
Row 5: a m r i s
The words are: amuse, charm, clasp, cough, crypt, drive, dunce, first, fresh, graft, grime, heavy, money, pixel, pluck, power, quiet, shark, smirk, stein, syrup, tidal, twice, weigh, yearn.
One letter of each word is provided in the grid.
Row 1: k a s g h
Row 2: d n e c u
Row 3: r y a l k
Row 4: t p f d e
Row 5: a m r i s
Answer
shark heavy fresh weigh coughdrive yearn stein twice dunce
power syrup clasp pixel pluck
graft crypt first tidal quiet
charm money smirk grime amuse
Common Letters
Rows 1 to 5: h e p t m
Columns 1 to 5: r y s i u
Diagonals 1 to 2: a c
The grid positions are identified by row (1 to 5, top to bottom) and column (1 to 5, left to right). Example: 3.2 identifies Row 3 Column 2.
1) A letter must occur at least five times to be able to be a shared letter. There are only 12 letters that have sufficient quantities to be shared letters.
2) Word 5.2 contains "m". Since there are five words with 'm', then those words must be in either Row 5 or Column 2. Word 4.2 contains "p". Since no word contains both "m" and "p", then the words in Row 5 must share "m".
3) Word 3.2 contains "y". Since there are five words with "y", then the words in Column 2 must share "y".
4) Word 5.2 contains "m" and "y", so it is "money". Words 2.2 contains "n" and "y", so it is "yearn". Word 1.2 contains "a" and "y", so it is "heavy".
5) Since Word 2.2 is "yearn", then Diagonal 1 must share one the following letters: "y", "e", "a", "r" "n". Word 1.1 also contains "k". The only words that contain the proper letters are "shark" and "smirk". Since "smirk" must be in Row 5, then Word 1.1 is "shark". The words in Diagonal 1 must share "a".
6) Word 3.5 contains "k", so it is "pluck".
7) Word 2.1 contains "d". The three words with "d" are "drive", "dunce" and "tidal". Word 2.1 must share a letter with "shark", which eliminates "dunce". The words "shark" and "tidal" share "a", but "a" is the shared letter of Diagonal 1. Therefore, Word 2.1 is "drive".
8) The words in Column 1 must share "r". Word 5.1 is "charm".
9) Word 5.5 contains "a", "m", and "s", so it is "amuse". The words in Column 5 must share "u". Word 1.5 contains "h" and "u", so it is "cough".
10) The words in Row 1 must share "h". Word 1.3 contains "h" and "s", so it is "fresh". Word 1.4 contains "g" and "h", so it is "weigh".
11) The words "charm" and "cough" share the letters "c" and "h". Since "h" is the shared letter of Row 1, then the words in Diagonal 2 must share "c".
12) Word 4.2 is "crypt". Word 3.2 is "syrup".
13) Word 4.4 is "tidal". Word 4.5 is "quiet".
14) Word 2.5 is "dunce". Word 2.4 is "twice".
15) Word 3.1 is "power". Word 3.3 is "clasp". Word 3.4 is "pixel".
16) Word 5.3 is "smirk". Word 4.3 is "first". Word 2.3 is "stein".
17) Word 5.4 is "grime". Word 4.1 is "graft".
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