Dictionary.com’s Ideas For Olympic Events

Hangman

The Olympic Challenge: Play the game while speed skating on a short track. The team guessing must call out the correct letters by the end of their race. The total amount of correct letters guessed by the end of the track equal to one point each. But, be careful as the refs may have picked a phrase with numbers or symbols! If the word is guessed, the team receives 50 points and automatic movement into the next round. Score!

Quizzes

The Olympic Challenge: Solve a digital quiz on a tablet strapped to the floor of a skeleton bobsled—this is the one you ride on your stomach, head first. 50 points if you answer all the quiz questions before you cross the finish line (otherwise one point for each right answer). Quiz categories change each round. 1st round: vocabulary from multiple languages. 2nd round: MeyersBriggs. 3rd round: string theory terminology.

Boggle

The Olympic Challenge: Play the word-search game Boggle while you also test your skills in freestyle skiing. With each aerial and mogul, you’ll also need to spell out words that appear jumbled on a big screen (the more challenging the more points), and if you’re still spelling when you touch the ground, no points at all. Conquer the other player by finding longer words.

Mad Libs

The Olympic Challenge: Take your best shot at Mad Libs while adding curling into the mix. When your teammate knocks the stone in your direction, it’s up to you to think on the spot and come up with a word suggestion before passing the stone to another player. Don’t worry, you’ll be given the part of speech by the refs. Keep the game going until you reach the end of the play, and if the opposing team interrupts by stealing the stone, you have to start all over again. The team with the most hilarious story wins.

Word Search

The Olympic Challenge: For each word you find on the puzzle projected on the big screen, it is to be followed with a new snowboarding trick. Each trick will vary in difficulty, depending on the word. For example, for an easier word like cat you’ll follow with a simpler snowboard exercise like carving. But, with a word such as boustrophedon, we say it’s time to try a jump off the halfpipe.

Wheel of Fortune

The Olympic Challenge: Playing Wheel of Future is a lot like a biathlon so we’ve incorporated it into, you guessed it, a biathlon. Start with cross-country skiing as you spin the wheel, then move onto rifle shooting as you guess a correct letter. Win the round all while trying your best to hit the real bullseye: spelling out the entire phrase.

Scattergories

The Olympic Challenge: We say, take this game to the ice. When your team has the hockey puck, it’s your turn to start naming objects off in a given category (supplied by the refs). You can only win if you make as many goals as you do words.

MASH

The Olympic Challenge: MASH (Mansion Apartment Shack House). In this version, instead of writing the names of likely partners, fancy cars you’d drive, and the number of kids you’ll have, we say get more creative with it. Challenge yourself like a true literary Olympian by using names of your favorite literature characters, vehicles from novels, and obscure creatures you’ve only read about—and do all this while figure skating (preferably in costume of one of those stories you’ll be naming). With each lutz and triple axel you do, you’ll yell out the word and instead of drawing the spiral with your hand, do it in the ice to determine your “magic number.”

Spelling Bee

The Olympic Challenge: Forget about your typical spelling bee. This is a competition for the outdoor enthusiasts. We challenge you to take today’s slang words and identify which ones are hot and which ones are not.  Conquer the language of our time by properly spelling words, including Finstagram and Draking, while bobsledding with your team, and finish the spelling list (shouted over the loudspeaker) before reaching the finish line, of course. (Bonus if you can explain what the terms mean too!)

Lexicant

The Olympic Challenge: Lexicant challenges two opposing teams to make words (but not really). During each turn, a letter is added to what is called a “word-stem,” and the objective is to try not to create an actual word. But we say, play this game while partaking in ski jumping. Each player needs to verbally shout a letter while jumping in the air. Here’s a tip: Brush up on the newest words in the dictionary beforehand so you don’t accidentally use them because if you do . . . game over.

Click to read more
Word of the Day

Can you guess the definition?

biblioklept

[ bib-lee-uh-klept ]

Can you guess the definition?

Word of the day
biblioklept

[ bib-lee-uh-klept ]