Change the last letter of the word to an "i" and rearrange to get a word meaning "enterprising".Q: Think of a word that means "very small." Move the first syllable to the end, separated by a space, and you'll get a two-word phrase naming something that is very large. What words are these?
Sunday, January 18, 2026
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 18, 2026): Very Tiny, Very Large
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 18, 2026): Very Tiny, Very Large
50 comments:
For NPR puzzle posts, don't post the answer or any hints that could lead to the answer before the deadline (usually Thursday at 3pm ET). If you know the answer, submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.
You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't assist with solving. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the deadline. Thank you.
As I posted on last week’s thread, I have what I think of as a strange answer. Jan’s “intentionally vague” hint there makes me think we may have the same answer, but I didn’t get his comment about SuperZee. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have left Super Zee himself in the dark.
ReplyDeleteBut if the second word in the answer evokes a common secondary meaning…
Jan’s comment about me will be explained on Thursday.
DeleteI'm waiting for Snipper to weigh in.
DeletePaul - you are my hero for giving me an appropriate shout out in connection with the puzzle! Thanks so much. I see you were an early solver this week!
DeleteBlow the Man Down.
ReplyDeleteRemove the last three letters of the first word and rearrange to get antecedents of the two-word phrase.
ReplyDeleteAs Yogi Berra said, “Seems like Deja-vu all over again.”
ReplyDeleteI'm probably wasting my time looking at lists of synonyms, but I'm noticing many words that mean very large have three or more syllables. That somehow seems appropriate.
ReplyDeleteI just reread the clue. I was looking for synonyms of "very large". I now see it's "something that is very large". Back to the drawing board!
DeleteIt might be a waterfall…but maybe not.
ReplyDeleteHm, I have one that I'm not very happy with, mainly because I don't think my "two-word phrase" is really used by people who want to refer to the very large thing.
ReplyDeleteHm. Also, people usually refer to a not-as-large thing.
Yeah, even though mine does sort of fit some of the clues, I don't think I have the intended answer.
571
ReplyDeleteI thought of that too. I went there once.
DeleteI guess my answer is not so "strange" after all. Rearrange, and get a synonym for the 2-word phrase and a form of art.
ReplyDeleteBlaine's clue helped me out immensely
ReplyDeleteSame
DeleteIt's kind of bewildering.
DeleteAhhhh. Now I have the answer everyone else has.
ReplyDeleteLiterary clue: James Joyce.
Again, there is a connection to the last puzzle.
ReplyDeleteNice bit of word play, Lego.
ReplyDeleteHere's a puzzle Will passed on today. If you'd like, have a go and maybe hint you know it until Thursday.
I think it's a delightful puzzle, but I am surely biased:
Take the name of a chemical element. Switch the 5th and 7th letters to get a word used in logic. What are these two words?
Neat.
Delete"Delightening."
DeleteLegoWhoAdds:OrToAnagrammatizeDr.K'sCommnet"A Ten!"
What some might say Bernie Sanders is
DeleteVery nice, WW. Maybe Will decided the second word was too esoteric.
DeleteTake the name of a common element. Change the third letter and rearrange to get a rare element.
I like it, WW! Also, another nice, albeit quirky, puzzle from Lego
DeleteWW, in my former professional life, I sometimes associated John Milton with the latter term, though, strictly speaking, he wasn’t.
DeleteNodd, would you like the answer now, or should I wait till Thursday?
Dr. K, you can answer now if you like.
DeleteHow are Mehmet Oz and Ben Carson like their nutritional advice?
DeleteArgon and radon.
DeleteNo, they're both common. The answer is sodium (common) and osmium (rare).
DeleteOops. Right you are.
DeleteI was awkwardly attempting to sift something out of Cesium, Cerium, and Erbium, but the really funny thing is, I had just noticed the Ar / Ra thing Saturday morning.
DeleteI have synthesized the answer, WW.
DeleteIt takes me back to the days when my buddy Socrates would get in the zone.
It only took me a minute to solve it while still in the sack, but first I had to abandon my initial thought that it must have something to do with MAGA IQ levels. As soon as I did that it popped right up out of the blue.
ReplyDeleteThe two-word thing may have more to do with MAGA IQ levels than we would wish.
DeleteI agree.
DeleteHey, that's funny, because I kept thinking about "hands
Deleteand "mouth"! So we went off on almost the same wrong path!
Uh, when I do Blaine's transform on my answer, I get an infirmity. I mean, I get a word for an infirmity.
ReplyDeleteI actually do too, so we probably have the same answer
DeleteRight on ... but I still can't match Blaine's clue
DeleteMy answer seems a bit hokey, but it matches Nodd's elegant clue, so I'll run with it. Lego is often a north star of puzzlemakers, so I'll hold my nose and ship it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ben.
DeleteNot to beat a dead horse (again) but for all you Wordlers out there, did anyone notice that if you take a recent solution and add a few letters and rearrange…….
ReplyDeleteI've always thought of the two word answer as being not quite big enough, rather than very big. But maybe that's just my personal experience.
ReplyDeleteThe NPR page says compromise instead comprise.
ReplyDeleteIt also has last week's puzzle contributor's name wrong.
DeleteFinally got a chance to work on this, and I believe I have the answer. And I got Blaine's clue!
ReplyDeleteI must not have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
Deletealarming!
ReplyDeletehttps://gallery.yopriceville.com/Free-Clipart-Pictures/Calendars-PNG/2026_EU_Colorful_Calendar_Transparent_PNG_Image
ReplyDelete