Dictionary Game

Christmas Eve I visited with a family and they taught me a game I had never played before, the Dictionary Game. This is a great game for the Lower or Upper Grades -- or for adults to play -- so I am passing it on. I recommend The Official Scrabble Players Dictionarybecause it has very unusual words in it (it can be harder than you think to find a word in a standard dictionary that no one in your party knows the definition of) PLUS it boosts your Scrabble know-how!


How to Play the Game:

Assemble your group. You can put a non-reader or non-writer with a reader or writer if younger kids want to play too.

Choose one person to begin: the Leader. That person takes the dictionary of your choice and looks through it, calling out words until he/she finds a word that no one in your group knows the meaning of. It's not fun to cheat so if you secretly know the word's meaning, fess up! Once the Leader finds a word that no one knows, he/she reads it out loud, spells it, and tells the part of speech.

Pass out slips of paper and pencils to each person.

The Leader writes down the correct definition of the chosen word. Everyone else writes down a made up definition that they think sounds like a possible real definition of the word. The goal is to trick others into thinking your definition is the correct one.

All slips of paper get passed to the Leader. When we played, we put the slips into a bowl in the center of the room and the Leader collected them when each person was done writing their definition.

The Leader opens all the slips without revealing the handwriting on them and reads them aloud. Usually twice, so people can think of which definition sounds most likely.

Each person states which of the definitions they believe is the correct one.

After everyone has voted on the definition of their choice, the correct definition is revealed and the points are tallied.

The Scorekeeper tallies the points. There are 3 ways to earn points.
1) If you guess the correct definition instead of one of the fakes, you get a point.
2) Every time you fool someone and that person chooses your definition instead of guessing the correct one, you get a point.
3) If NO ONE guesses the correct definition, the Leader gets one point for each person in the group, not counting him/herself.

Now pass the dictionary to the next person in the circle and that person becomes the Leader.

At the end of the game, tally up all the points. The winner has to make a sentence using all the words!!!