Off With Their Heads!

By William F. Bultas

No, these puzzles do not involve the Queen of Hearts or Alice in Wonderland! Puzzles 1-20 each describe a different word; puzzles 21-40 also describe different words, but each word was made by removing the first letters from the answers to 1-20. Example: if one of the puzzles in the first set is listed as "A path," you might guess that the answer is TRAIL. One of the puzzles in the second set might be "A metal bar used to form a track for a vehicle." The answer to this would be RAIL. Every word in the first set appears headless in the second set, but not in any particular order (e.g. the answer to puzzle 21 is not necessarily the headless version of the answer to puzzle 1). If the answers you're coming up with don't seem to quite "fit," you've probably come up with the wrong answer(s). The answers are on this page. If you can solve more than 20 of these puzzles, I believe you'd make the Queen of Puzzledom proud. Happy puzzling!

1. The name of Hester's daughter in The Scarlet Letter.

2. A concave container for food.

3. A long, narrow band of flexible material.

4. Idle away time.

5. Not deep.

6. A prime number.

7. A suppurating sore on the skin.

8. Await settlement.

9. Something that will create sparks when struck against steel.

10. A representative specimen.

11. Order or rank.

12. A slight break.

13. Something that connects.

14. A short remaining piece.

15. Develop by cultivation.

16. An airship.

17. An affectedly modest individual.

18. Rise slowly.

19. A spinachlike vegetable.

20. Ordinary language.

21. A lout.

22. Copious.

23. A nocturnal person.

24. A vessel for bathing.

25. A large branch of a tree.

26. A stand for holding articles.

27. A mimic.

28. A light crimson color.

29. Primitive.

30. A girl.

31. An upper limb of the body.

32. Unyielding.

33. Regarded as sacred.

34. Walk with noticeable difficulty.

35. A British nobleman.

36. A fluid used to reduce friction in engines.

37. Equal.

38. A fluid used for writing.

39. Small bits of thread or fiber.

40. An outermost boundary.

Answers