How many of the 170k English words do you know? • Hacker News Board

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#371

Post by wingmanjd » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 2:23 AM UTC

trebligdivad wrote: post #337

brianleb wrote: post #263

As others have pointed out, too many clicks per word. I am a sucker for a 'how many words do you know' quiz so I finished anyway. Overall I'm skeptical of the classifications. In broad strokes, the early words are easier and the latter words are more challenging, but the middle is pretty muddied. Some of the words chosen are rather absurd/inappropriate: breviary (which I got wrong but felt like a vaguely religious wo…

Yeh, it had 'kerfuffle' as one of the last words but that's very common. Yet it had Zenzizenzizenzic (which I'd never heard of but I think I guessed it right) It really could do with a summary showing the answers you made and corrections for what you got wrong.

Ha, a Wikipedia article link to Zenzizenzizenzic was on HN earlier today! I don't think I would have gotten that one right otherwise.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48603664

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#372

Post by andrewflnr » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 2:25 AM UTC

SXX wrote: post #227

Not that I want to cheat in such a game, but for many words everything but correct definition is shorter or follow some "dumb rpg text" template. Like if author used LLM to generate wrong definitions per word instead of actually mixing definitions of words. Like for me most of more complex words been adjectives with few nouns. And in many cases you can just see 2/4 or 3/4 definitions are not for adjective.

I was actually kind of impressed with how many of them didn't fall into that trap, but where all the options were roughly the same length and format. (For sure, a couple of the others were BS.)

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#373

Post by asah » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 2:38 AM UTC

brianleb wrote: post #263

As others have pointed out, too many clicks per word. I am a sucker for a 'how many words do you know' quiz so I finished anyway. Overall I'm skeptical of the classifications. In broad strokes, the early words are easier and the latter words are more challenging, but the middle is pretty muddied. Some of the words chosen are rather absurd/inappropriate: breviary (which I got wrong but felt like a vaguely religious wo…

I used and and left the mouse hovering over the continue button, and it went very quickly.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#374

Post by poisonfountain » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 2:43 AM UTC

Once you get to the Advanced/Expert words onwards it's too easy to guess the correct answer: it's usually the longest option. And once you notice this pattern it's impossible to try to guess fairly.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#375

Post by hamolton » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 2:44 AM UTC

Please add keyboard controls

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#376

Post by getnormality » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 2:59 AM UTC

This app is a great example of what AI does to your brain. No one making their own choices in the app design would make each question need three clicks.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#377

Post by throwaway27448 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 3:06 AM UTC

Would other people define "complacent" as "Smug satisfaction with oneself"? I'm not so sure.

Regardless, this was fun.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#378

Post by uberex » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 3:32 AM UTC

87/100 64,250

A lot of words used in Software Engineering as metaphors helped.

Also one weird tip. If I didn't know the answer went for the negative description of human behaviour answer and I guess 50% chance rather than 1 in 4.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#379

Post by beojan » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 3:33 AM UTC

julianeon wrote: post #348

brianleb wrote: post #263

As others have pointed out, too many clicks per word. I am a sucker for a 'how many words do you know' quiz so I finished anyway. Overall I'm skeptical of the classifications. In broad strokes, the early words are easier and the latter words are more challenging, but the middle is pretty muddied. Some of the words chosen are rather absurd/inappropriate: breviary (which I got wrong but felt like a vaguely religious wo…

I'll contest a few of these, which I thought were good. Breviary: this was, to me, known and not uncommon. It's widely known to Catholics, but also, if you have an interest in medieval art or books, you'd likely know it too. It was one of the main types of books before the invention of the printing press. Think of an image from an illuminated manuscript, 50% chance it's from one. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia:…

> So you could, even knowing only "phobia" and being able to guess "hippo", have a good basis for your choice.

Except "hippo-" is from Greek and means "horse".

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#380

Post by buzzerbetrayed » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 3:36 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #344

brianleb wrote: post #263

As others have pointed out, too many clicks per word. I am a sucker for a 'how many words do you know' quiz so I finished anyway. Overall I'm skeptical of the classifications. In broad strokes, the early words are easier and the latter words are more challenging, but the middle is pretty muddied. Some of the words chosen are rather absurd/inappropriate: breviary (which I got wrong but felt like a vaguely religious wo…

> what high schooler doesn't learn about kinetic energy? 95% of Americans.

Sick burn bro.

I can assure you that just about every American that has made it through middle school has been taught about kinetic energy. Let alone high school.