Family Fun With Mr. Webster

It was a classic New Year's Day, the whole family gathered in the family room, in front of a roaring fire, playing games. We decided to try a game with the kids that Husband and I used to play when we were poor college kids: The Dictionary Game.

For the those unfamiliar with the game, all you need is paper, pencils and a big dictionary. Each player gets a turn to find a word in the dictionary that no one knows. You spell it out and give its part of speech and then all the other players write down on their own sheet of paper an inventive definition for the word. The dictionary holder writes down the correct definition on his paper and then collects all the papers and reads the definitions one by one. Players vote for what they think is the real definition and you get a point for each vote for your definition and if you guessed the correct one. (Does any of this make sense?) Dictionary holder also gets a point if he stumped the crowd with the real definition that no one guessed.

Anyway, the definitions my kids were coming up with just cracked me up. Here were some of the more creative ones:

Wish-wash - A person who no longer visits a website, online discussion forum or chatroom.

Yob - A gun, introduced by France during the American Revolution in 1777, used for easier aim and mobility.

Stevedore - The board directly above the motherboard in a computer that stores memory for music and videos.

Potawatomi - An African monkey who is deadly enough to carry infectious diseases.

Thenar - Jewish dancing ritual held immediately after a bar mitzvah.

Pleon - Large area adjacent to a courthouse that holds convictees before trial.

Zarf - One's reaction after discovering one was given false directions from a close acquaintance.

Gaper - A metal hook used to catch wide mouth bass.

Who cares what the real definitions are when you've got interesting ones like those? College daughter, with one semester of college under her belt, managed to squeak by with the win, beating me, champion of all games wordy. I'm still recovering.

We topped off the evening with a non-traditional New Year's meal of sirloin tip roast, carrots, noodles, watermelon, and biscuits. For dessert, turtle cake, because we just haven't gotten enough chocolate, caramel and nuts into our systems over the holidays.

Happy New Year!