Any set of n-1 letters from a word form a word. How long?

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1

In case the concept isn’t clear, here is an object lesson.

Take the word stripe. We could also express the example as priest, ripest, tripes.

*tripe is an obvious example. No shuffling necessary. (And no nonsense!)

s*ripe gives spire as one anagram.

st*ipe gives spite.

str*pe gives strep.

stri*e gives tires, rites.

strip* gives lap dances. :slight_smile:

I have come across other examples of 5 letter words, but have not written them down. I cannot be sure if I ever came up with one of 6 letters.

Try your hand at it.

2

serrate

Remove the s, either e, either r, the a or the t to get

tearer
arrest
teaser
terser
eraser

3

For n=8 just use
serrates

Remove either s, either e, either r, the a or the t to get

tearers
arrests
teasers
resters
erasers

4

startling
starling
staring
string
sting
sing
sin
in
I

5

Good ones, septimus.

Prof. Pepperwinkle, that’s not what I had in mind. But I have noted that some words can be… uh… omni-“curtailed” down to a single letter that counts as a word. If that is the longest one known, thank you.

6

I was afraid that my efforts violated the spirit of the rules by using multiple letters. If they’re OK, allow me to present a solution for n=9

steadiers
remove a – editress
remove d – seriates
remove e – disaster
remove i – asserted
remove r – steadies
remove s – readiest
remove t – seasider

(‘Editress’ has some commoner anagrams but the word has sentimental value to me. The first time I saw the word was in a census listing for my great-grandmother.)

@ Prof. Pepperwinkle — if you allow the remaining letters to be permuted, as OP does, you can get a much longer deletion chain. See if you can reduce featherlessnesses all the way down to a.

7

I had never considered double letters an obstacle to a solution. As you put it, “remove either # to get: …”

n=9 is excellent! I dimly recall struggling with an 8 letter word 6 years ago on a bus. I can’t seem to recall it now, except that it started with en. It may come back to me, but it’s probably not worth anything here. I’m sure I recall that one of the deletions left a hopeless result.

8

Uh, fatherlessnesses… I’ll work on it and get back to you.

9

Found it online, with a couple of others:

Here are some 17-word chains from Webster’s Third New International:

fEatherlessnesses  nitrosoguanidineS  observationalismS
 Fatherlessnesses  nitrosOguanidine   observationalIsm
  Heartlessnesses  nitroguanidineS    malobservationS
   tEarlessnesses  Nitroguanidine     Malobservation
    artlessnesseS  reaudItioning      obserVational
     tearlesSness  Unoriginated       elaBorations
      alerTnesses  deniGration        areOlations
       realNesses  Inordinate         senAtorial
        Snareless  Rodentian          laiRstone
         realNess  antInode           tOenails
          earleSs  aNtedon            salienT
           Resale  Donate             alieNs
            leasE  Oaten              aislE
             Seal  aNte               Sail
              lEa  tEa                aIl
               La  aT                 La
                a  a                  a
10

I’m getting dizzy, Prof.!