What Word Becomes Shorter When You Add Two Letters?

There is a five-letter word that becomes shorter when you add two letters to it.
What is the word?

💡 Hint

Think about how you say “more tall” in one word.

Reveal answer

SHORT. Add “ER” and it becomes “SHORTER.”

“Short” has five letters. Adding the two letters E and R turns it into “shorter,” which literally means more short. The word gets longer on the page but becomes “shorter” in meaning. The puzzle works because your brain reads “becomes shorter” as a statement about length, not about vocabulary.

Did you know?The ending “-er” is called the comparative suffix in English grammar: tall becomes taller, fast becomes faster, short becomes shorter. Word puzzles love it because it lets a word talk about itself. Try making your own version: which word becomes “longer” when you add two letters? (Long, of course.)

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About This Puzzle

Adding letters to a word should make it longer. This puzzle asks you to find a word where the opposite seems to happen. It’s quick, it’s fair, and it’s a favorite with kids.

How to Think About It

The puzzle doesn’t say the word gets fewer letters. That would be impossible. Read “becomes shorter” another way: maybe the new word means shorter. Which two letters do we often add to the end of a describing word to compare things?

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