This is a variation of Elite Etile.

Consider all possible valid English words having at least 3 letters and at most 13 letters that satisfy the following conditions:

• Each word ends with a letter that immediately follows the letter that the word begins with. (For example, if a word begins with c it must end in d), and:
  
• Reversing the letters we obtain another valid English word, and:
• None of the words can be proper nouns, acronyms or abbreviations, and:
• None of the words can be hyphenated like A-bomb, X-ray etc.

What is the longest word that satisfies all the given conditions? What are the respective first word and the last word appearing alphabetically? Does there exist any valid English word having more than 13 letters that satisfies all the conditions?

There are relatively few words that meet the given conditions.

(i) The longest word pairs I found in a dictionary are the two word pairs of seven-letter words:

• reloops - the act of looping again
  spooler - one who, or that which, spools
• reknits - the act of knitting again
  stinker - something or someone difficult or unpleasant

In addition are three word pairs of six-letter words:

• recaps - summarizes briefly
  spacer - an empty or blank area
• redips - the act of dipping again
  spider - an eight-legged creature
• repins - the act of pinning again
  sniper - a marksman who shoots from concealment

In the following list are word pairs of shorter length that meet all but the condition of longest length. Note, some of the words that end in -s are both third-person singular simple present verbs as well as plural nouns. Due to the former condition they are included here:

• arb - an arbiter
  bra - a brassiere
• card - a piece of thick stiff paper
  drac - (Austrailian slang) unattractive
• cod - a Northern Atlantic food fish
  doc - a doctor
• dace - a small European freshwater fish
  ecad - organism whose form is environmentally affected
• deke - a fake, intended to decieve the opponent
  eked - got with great effort or strain
• flog - beat severly with a whip or rod
  golf - a game played on a usually large open course
• keel - a longitudinal beam of a vessels hull
  leek - a slender onion-like vegetable
• larum - an alarm
  mural - a very large image applied to a wall or ceiling
• muton - smallest unit of DNA which mutation can occur
  notum - dorsal part of the thoracic segment of an insect
• raps - strikes sharply and swiftly; snatches
  spar - fight in a short bout or practice; a pole
• rats - snitches
  star - self-luminous celestial body; a famous performer 
• rebus - representation of words using pictures/symbols
  suber - an outer tissue of bark; phellem
• roots - grows or plants roots; originates; take sides with
  stoor - (Scottish) turmoil or conflict; dust; cloud of dust
• snit - a state of agitated irritation
  tins - plates with tin; preserves in a can or tin
• stat - with no delay; at once
  tats - makes lacework by knotting or looping
• spat - a brief quarrel; had spit; a larval-staged mullosk
  taps - to touch gently or make a soft knocking sound
• spit - to expectorate; spittle
  tips - tilts; gives a gratutity
• spot - a stain, blot, mark or blemish; to sight
  tops - bests; places atop
• swot - to study intensively
  tows - drags behind

(ii) Disregarding the usage of plurals the following other words meet the given conditions:

• res - plural of re: 2nd note of the sol-fa scale
  ser - unit of weight 1/40 of a maund
• retros - fashions reminiscent of the past
  sorter - something or someone who sorts things
• rexes - plural of rex: an animal exhibiting a recessive genetic variation of short, sparse or a lack of guard hairs
  sexer - one specialized in chicken sexing
• smut - a fungus; obscene material
  tums - plural of tum: tummy
• swat - a sharp blow
  taws - pl. of taw: shooting marble; 23rd Hebrew letter
• sit - to take a seat; rest;watch and care for a child
  tis - pl. of ti: 7th note of the sol-fa scale

I did find a few other words that met the requirements (two disregarding the plural restriction), yet one or both words of the word pairs are either outdated, archaic or obsolete:

• bac - a broad, flatbottomed ferryboat; a vat or cistern
  cab - a taxi
• deye - to die
  eyed - having an eyelike features; watched intensely
• fig - a fleshy sweet pear-shaped fruit
  gif - if
• oop - to bind with thread or cord; to join; to unite
  poo - feces; to defecate
• redos - pl. of redo: the act doing something again
  soder - solder; to mend; to unite with fusible metal
• rots - wastes away; breaks down
  stor - strong; powerful; hardy; bold
• rooms - shares a room or house with one or more others
  smoor - to suffocate or smother
• stut - to stutter
  tuts - pl. of tut: hassock

Edited on April 26, 2012, 1:08 pm

Posted by Dej Mar on 2012-04-26 13:05:24