Spoilers for Tuesday 4th November 2025 - Series 92, Heat 92

[Philip A]

Would anyone be kind enough to enlighten me as to why Countdown always disallows words which only appear in a combinations of words or phrases? In this case, you can’t have ‘elkhorn’ because it only appears in ‘elkhorn coral’ (as Susie explained), and for another example you can’t have ‘curlies’ because it only appears in the phrases ‘have someone by the short and curlies’ and ‘get someone by the short and curlies’. You can only have individual words.

Very tough letters today, I thought: the letters produced difficult words to find, even if they weren’t always obscure, and a number of answers were disallowed for various reasons, hence the low scoreline. I got the conundrum but can understand the ‘fabricked x’ pitfall.

Still, better to win 1-0 than to lose 5-4.

[Jon Stammers]

Would anyone be kind enough to enlighten me as to why Countdown always disallows words which only appear in a combinations of words or phrases? In this case, you can’t have ‘elkhorn’ because it only appears in ‘elkhorn coral’ (as Susie explained), and for another example you can’t have ‘curlies’ because it only appears in the phrases ‘have someone by the short and curlies’ and ‘get someone by the short and curlies’. You can only have individual words.

Yes these orphan words are annoying, but as I understand the rule is simply that a word can only be used if it has its own dictionary entry as a headword in its own right. Span but not spick.

[Gavin Chipper]

It would presumably be difficult to allow the second half of a phrase because you couldn't find the word with an alphabetical search. Not sure how the current search engine works but they used to use paper dictionaries so it wouldn't be practical to allow these words back then, and allowing them if they were the first part of the phrase only would be inconsistent.

[David Williams]

The one I'd question is allowing words like WAISTED that only exist in combination. Aren't those combinations always hyphenated? You can have high-waisted trousers, but not high waisted trousers.

[Gavin Chipper]

I think some words are explicitly listed with the hyphen and some not, with WAISTED not for some reason. So I think it's a dictionary thing rather than a Countdown thing.

[Fiona T]

Bit of both I think

WAISTED has it's own sub-heading under derivatives, althought the dictionary says "in combination"




Something like formic is only there under a single heading formic acid (similar to mistle thrush).


The countdown rules state under NOT ALLOWED

(k) words which only appear in combinations:
For example, mistle (mistle thrush) and quo (status quo) are not allowed.


I suppose waisted says in combination, but doesn't only appear in combinations as it has its own sub-heading, but agree that the rule could be interpreted differently