Fluther: Can you think of a word with four repeated letters?

Can you think of a word with four repeated letters?

Asked by LostInParadise (31915

) February 8th, 2019
46 responses
“Great Question” (5

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For example, the word runner has two repeated letters, r and n. I posed the problem to myself of finding words with 3 repeated letters and, after a little while, was able to think of a few.

The problem of finding words with 4 repeated letters was more difficult. I did not think of any at first and stopped thinking about it. Then later on a word popped into my head and later another one. The words were relatively short, with only 2 non-repeated letters in one case and 3 in the other. I had to write them down to be certain that there were in fact 4 repeated letters.

It is interesting to think of how the mind works for such problems. There is no way to systematically attack them. Somehow use is made of the way we internally file words. There can’t be all that many words with 4 repeated letters. I would appreciate it if some of you try to find some, so I can see if the words you think of are the same as the ones I thought of.

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Answers

I did a search and came up with this:

LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH, which is the name of a Welsh town.

Since your example of “runner” has the “n” and the “r” as being repeated, my example has “L”, “A”, “N”, “I”, “R”, “W”, “Y”, “G”, “O” and “R” 10 repeated letters. Oddly, it only has 5 letters that AREN’T repeated.

seawulf575 (16670

)“Great Answer” (1

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As everyone knows, there is “Ssssnake”.
It is the title of a 1973 horror film.

ragingloli (51968

)“Great Answer” (1

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Antidisestablishmentarianism has 7— a n t i s e m.

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis has 11— p n u m o l r a i s c.

Brian1946 (32275

)“Great Answer” (3

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Mississippi

elbanditoroso (33159

)“Great Answer” (6

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I was a bit off in the number of non-repeating letters of the words I thought of. One word has 5, with a total length of 14, and is pretty commonly used. The other has 4, with a total length of 12, and would not be out of place in a newspaper article.

LostInParadise (31915

)“Great Answer” (0

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Sassiness

canidmajor (21235

)“Great Answer” (2

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I just reread this. Not one letter repeated at least four times, but four separate letters repeated at least once?

canidmajor (21235

)“Great Answer” (1

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Yes, that is correct. success counts as two repeated letters, s and c, and successes counts as 3 repeated letters.

LostInParadise (31915

)“Great Answer” (1

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I came up with Mississippi too.

janbb (62876

)“Great Answer” (1

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Mississippi here too.

Dutchess_III (46813

)“Great Answer” (0

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I did not think of Mississippi. Can you think of any words not related to proper nouns?

LostInParadise (31915

)“Great Answer” (0

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Underground is all that comes to my mind.

flutherother (34531

)“Great Answer” (5

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Penniicillinnssss…

Spoken by Parselmouths who are also veterinarians when talking to patient snakes. (jk ) :)

mazingerz88 (28814

)“Great Answer” (0

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Constitution
misinterpretation
philosophies

mazingerz88 (28814

)“Great Answer” (3

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“intestines” has five repeated letters. The word can be scrambled to “iinntteess”.

Demosthenes (14934

)“Great Answer” (5

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“Bookkeeper” has three doubles in a row. But that’s not what you’re looking for, I guess.

I think there must be a lot of words with four-letter repeats, but retrieving them from memory with a repeated-letter filter isn’t easy unless your brain is tuned to work that way. For me it would be easier to notice them as they go by in reading.

Dos anyone play “hangman” any more? If so, and you play by the rules that a correct guess fills in all the instances of that letter, the ones with repeats are good ones to avoid.

How does Mississippi qualify? It repeats i, s, and p. That’s three. Have I misunderstood the criterion?

Jeruba (55830

)“Great Answer” (2

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@Jeruba You’re right about Ol’ Miss! I missed.

janbb (62876

)“Great Answer” (0

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Thanks all.

@Demosthenes , I was not willing to contemplate 5 repeats. Nicely done, and all letters repeat.

The words I thought of were classification and recalcitrant.

LostInParadise (31915

)“Great Answer” (0

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I’m not sure I understand what’s requested, but would a word like syllepsis qualify?

stanleybmanly (24153

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@stanleybmanly No, it has to have 4 letters that each repeat in the word.

janbb (62876

)“Great Answer” (1

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plurals count? Like secessionists? If so, it might prove expedient to mine the “s” words.

stanleybmanly (24153

)“Great Answer” (0

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@stanleybmanly, I made the same mistake. It’s not one letter many times, but many letters repeated at least once, like “intestines” from @Demosthenes.

canidmajor (21235

)“Great Answer” (2

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So happenstances? That’s 5 different letters repeating.

stanleybmanly (24153

)“Great Answer” (2

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Interesting

canidmajor (21235

)“Great Answer” (1

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plenipotential—6

stanleybmanly (24153

)“Great Answer” (2

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This game is insidious. It puts my head in a ditch that threatens to destroy my productive day. Right now the four letter needle is skipping on the p tracks: perspiration, propeller, perpetrate, prosperous—-HELP ME!

stanleybmanly (24153

)“Great Answer” (4

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Well done! Maybe you are on to something by choosing a starting letter. It took me a little time to check that plenipotential does have 6 repeats. Only the a and o are non-repeating. You can take a break now. You have demonstrated your skill in solving this. Any insight into how you approached this would be welcome.

LostInParadise (31915

)“Great Answer” (2

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This isn’t the blessing you might suppose. As the very current discussion on another thread so elegantly demonstrates, the fact that my mind is so easily hobbled with such distractions is a handicap if it cannot be somehow monetized—penitential!!! How do you switch it off???

stanleybmanly (24153

)“Great Answer” (1

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How about abracadabra? (abra) Is that a word?

LuckyGuy (43691

)“Great Answer” (2

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No, it is a Pokémon.

ragingloli (51968

)“Great Answer” (0

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For a moment I was terrified that ragingloli was one of THEM.

stanleybmanly (24153

)“Great Answer” (0

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supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Reckon that’s a 10
<drops mic>

ucme (50047

)“Great Answer” (1

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@LuckyGuy , abracadabra only has 3 repeating letters, a, b and r. Here is one that you should be familiar with – engineering.

I initially thought that there must be a lot of place names like Mississippi with lots of repeating letters. The only other one that I can think of is Londonderry.

A wild thought that occurred to me. @stanleybmanly mentioned the words prosperous and plenipotential. Does having repeated letters contribute to the meaning of these words, giving a sense of fullness? Would the same hold true in a negative way for penitentiary, suggesting a place of many horrors?

LostInParadise (31915

)“Great Answer” (0

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Assassin

jsellers145 (11

)“Great Answer” (1

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@LostinParadise I think pententiary is merely derived from penitent. Preposterous (more “p”s again)

stanleybmanly (24153

)“Great Answer” (1

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Really, guys? No one appreciates “interesting”? Common word, four repeaters. Jeez.

canidmajor (21235

)“Great Answer” (3

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The 4 letter words come to mind more readily if the cheat of plurals is allowed. More “p”s—propositions, prepositions, prescriptions. Proportionality-5

stanleybmanly (24153

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Preposterous Stanly.

Dutchess_III (46813

)“Great Answer” (0

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@stanleybmanly , I take your point regarding penitentiary being derived from penitent, but there still might be a psychological sense of fullness from having repeated letters even if it the repeated letters came about for a completely different reason.

LostInParadise (31915

)“Great Answer” (1

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Procrastinations 7

stanleybmanly (24153

)“Great Answer” (1

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Assassins doesn’t have 4 but assassinations does.

janbb (62876

)“Great Answer” (2

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@janbb , No need for the final s.