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seaturtleisland
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15 Jul 2013, 3:33 pm

Is there a name for a word within a word. For example international. The whole word is international. The letters of the word intentional are found in the right order within the whole word. You don't even need to rearrange them. Another example would be psychotic.

Is there a name for this kind of pattern and if there is what is it?



animalcrackers
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15 Jul 2013, 3:42 pm

Oh wait....now I see. My first guess was "root word" because I didn't quite understand your bolding.

I don't know of a specific word for that...all I can think of is anagrams, but those can involve re-arranging letters so it's not the same thing.


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MjrMajorMajor
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15 Jul 2013, 3:47 pm

animalcrackers wrote:
Oh wait....now I see. My first guess was "root word" because I didn't quite understand your bolding.

I don't know of a specific word for that...all I can think of is anagrams, but those can involve re-arranging letters so it's not the same thing.


That's all I could think of too.



WitchsCat
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15 Jul 2013, 5:48 pm

I could say "kangaroo words", but both words have to have the same meaning, so I may be wrong.


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jk1
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15 Jul 2013, 7:22 pm

Wow, I never thought about such a thing! Interesting! I have no idea if there is a word for it. If you find an answer to your question, please post it.



seaturtleisland
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15 Jul 2013, 8:07 pm

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Scia
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17 Jul 2013, 10:48 pm

I'm pretty sure it's not 'root words.' That term is used to mean 'a word that (the word in question) is based off of.' For example, the word 'thermometer' comes from the Greek words 'thermo' meaning 'heat' and 'meter' meaning 'to measure.' I don't think I've heard a term for what's being described. It's an interesting thought. Maybe you could bounce it by dictionary.com? They tend to post articles on such things.