What is the Third Word?

Posted by: Josef Essberger

Here’s a common puzzle

Think of words ending in “-gry”. “Angry” and “hungry” are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened carefully, I have already told you what it is.

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Posted by Josef Essberger November 2007

Contributor: Josef Essberger, founder of EnglishClub. Originally from London, England, Josef is the author of several books for learners of English including English Prepositions List and Learn English in 7.

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14 comments

• Pavlina Marinova says:
  

  The third word is “puggry”. It is a noun and it means a light scarf around a hat or helmet to protect the back of the neck from the sun.

• Ali Kose says:
  

  The word is three. This riddle works better in person due to pronunciation, but is a nice one to figure out on paper. Hats off to you sir, jolly good show.

• GG says:
  

  English’s comment is correct… The answer is language.

• blanca says:
  

  What is the third word of location , setting _____

• m. emmit says:
  

  the answer is “language”

• Linda K (Hollywood) says:
  

  Hello everyone
  “GRY” is also verb meaning “to rang’ there are
  several words ending in “gry” The point is that the
  riddle was trick question What’s interesting about
  it is that it won’t lie down and die.
  So now you can give up the search and move
  on the useful pastimes.

  Good luck
  Linda k(Hollywood)

• Graciela says:
  

  I want the answer please. I had never thought there were only three words ending in “gry”!!!

• jessie says:
  

  wow !

• Robert says:
  

  Thanks! english!

  I finally understand!

• english says:
  

  Robert,

  There are only three words in “the English language”.

  “the English language” has 3 words. The 3rd one is “language”.

• Robert says:
  

  Is the third word “language” just like what english said?
  If so, could you please explain it to me?
  Becasue I really don’t know!

• english says:
  

  This puzzle is supposed to be spoken. If it is written (as above) it should really be correctly punctuated with quotation marks (“”):

  There are only three words in “the English language”.

  Now you can see that the third word is “language”.

• jaml says:
  

  What is the first and second word?
  Think of these two prefixes “Im-” and “In-“. Immoral and Insane. That is what it is.

• Choedon says:
  

  I don’t know!