Word game

"Word puzzle" redirects here. For the video game, see Word Puzzle (video game).

Word games (also called word game puzzles) are spoken or board games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties.

Word games are generally engaged as a source of entertainment, but have been found to serve an educational purpose as well. For instance, young children can find enjoyment playing modestly competitive games such as Hangman, while naturally developing important language skills like spelling. Solving crossword puzzles, which requires familiarity with a larger vocabulary, is a pastime that mature adults have long credited with keeping their minds sharp.

There are popular televised word games with valuable monetary prizes for the winning contestants. Many word games enjoy international popularity across a multitude of languages, while some are unique to English-speakers.

Language-predicated educational games

A word game or word puzzle can be of several different types:

Letter arrangement games

Typdom, a word game from the 1930s
King's Square word game

The goal is to form words out of given letters.

Paper and pencil games/puzzles

Rebus example (Earth, Nurse) Answer: Athens
Metagram example (Well, Ball, Walk) Answer: Wall

Structured games

Games focusing on the semantics of words.

Linguistic recreations

These are games based on words and letters.

Televised games

Miscellaneous

See also

References

  1. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1515/upwords

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, March 26, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.