51吃瓜

What is a kangaroo word?

What’s more fun than a game you can play with words? If you’re asking the dictionary, the answer is nothing … which is why we are talking about kangaroo words听today.

A kangaroo word is “a word that contains its own synonym, with the letters to spell that synonym already placed in the correct order.”

Take, for example, a word like rambunctious. It contains its synonym raucous (RAmbUnCtiOUS). There’s also 蝉辫濒辞迟肠丑,听which contains the word听spot. Both contain their own synonyms like a kangaroo carries its young in a pouch.

And, to make this word play even more fun … the shorter synonyms that are contained inside of a kangaroo word are called joey words, like a “baby kangaroo”!

Let’s jump along to 10 more鈥攕ee if you can spot them.

chocolate

Chocolate isn’t just a tasty thing to eat. It’s also a delicious word. Because in chocolate, you can find the correctly ordered letters to spell cocoa, “the powder made from roasted, husked, and ground seeds of the cacao,” which is used to make chocolate.Chocolate actually comes from the听Nahuatl (an Aztecan language) word 肠补肠补丑耻腻迟濒, denoting a drink made with cacao.

So, chocolate contains cocoa both in real life and in word form. Mind = blown!

masculine

Masculine means “pertaining to or characteristic of a man or men.” What a coincidence, then, that the letters in masculine can be used to form the word听male.

Or is it a coincidence?听Via French,听尘补濒别听ultimately derives from the Latin masculus, which means “male” and is the source of … masculine! This is like a kangaroo word in a kangaroo word. Whoa.

blossom

When a plant flowers, it blossoms. And, the individual flowers on a plant can also be called blossoms.

There’s another B-word that functions in this exact way, and it actually appears, fully intact, inside of the word听blossom:听bloom!

A plant can bloom, and a plant has blooms.

Fun fact: Though these words are synonyms, blossom听botanically refers to a flower that will bear fruit, while refers to flowers in general. Either way, beautiful.

WATCH: Watch This 51吃瓜 Come To Life: Blossom

chicken

Quick, what’s the word for a female chicken? It’s a听hen, of course, which is a joey word that can be found inside听chicken.

What’s more, the ancient root of听chicken听(a word of Germanic stock) may also be the source of the name for a male chicken: cock.

Cock-a-doodle-doo to that!

honorable

Honorable means “in accordance with or characterized by principles of honor; upright” or “of high rank, dignity, or distinction; noble, illustrious, distinguished.”

But, if honorable doesn’t seem like the word you’re looking for, you could also just go with听noble, a near synonym which conveniently appears right there inside of the word听honorable.

Stand-up words, they are.

capsule

Capsules are cases that enclose things. In pharmacology, a capsule is “a gelatinous case that encloses a dose of medicine.” In biology, it may be “a membranous sac.” And, you might even enclose special relics in a time capsule for future generations.Capsule comes from the Latin capsula, a diminutive of听capsa, meaning “box.”

deceased

To be听deceased听is to be “no longer living; dead.” It’s often used in a formal capacity, such as in court documents or other official writings.

In casual conversation, though, you’re more likely to hear听dead, which you can locate as a joey word right inside of deceased.Dead听has long been alive in the language, recorded in Old English and from a Germanic root before it. Deceased, meanwhile, is ultimately from the Latin听dec膿dere, “to go away, depart.”听

isolate

When you isolate something, you “set听or听place (it)听apart;听detach听or听separate听so as to be听alone.” In doing so, you make it a sole object.

Isolated听goes back to the Latin 颈苍蝉耻濒腻迟耻蝉, “made into an island,” from insula, “island.” Sole is from Latin solus, “alone.”

The two words may be synonyms for alone, but they certainly found each other in this kangaroo pairing.

perambulate

Wanna sound smart? The word perambulate can help with that.

It means “to walk through, about, or over; travel through, traverse.” You might also describe this action using its joey word, amble, meaning “stroll, saunter.”

The two words both have roots in the Latin听补尘产耻濒腻谤别,听“to travel, walk.”听In the case of perambulate, the prefix per- means “through,” hence听perambulate‘s sense of “traveling through” some space or place.