Words

[coggles]

I was thinking of words that can have a letter added to the beginning to make another word (I was washing up, boring!) as in the word 'one' which can become bone, cone, done, etc. Can anyone think of a word that can have most letters of the alphabet put in front of it?

[coggles]

Just to complete the above example, 'one' can become: bone, cone, done, gone, hone, lone, none pone, (a bread made by Native Americans apparently!) sone, tone and zone.

[molly]

What about 'and' ?..... band, hand, land, rand (south African currency), sand and wand.

[saffstar]

s + word = sword; s + worn = sworn; s + wear = swear; t + win = twin; s + lick = slick; s + team = steam; w + hat = what....this'll keep me going all afternoon!!!

[tartanwiz]

ream (as in a quantity of paper) can become cream or dream.

[Quizmonster]

Chambers Dictionary lists 14 based on 'are'...bare, care, dare, fare, gare, hare, lare, mare, nare, pare, rare, tare, vare and ware. Gare means greedy, lare means lore, nare means a bird's nostril, tare means a weight or a plant and vare means a wand...allegedly!

[flirty41]

'Eat' can become beat, feat, heat, meat, neat, peat, seat, teat. That's 8 different letters!

[bernardo]

I noticed that you did not specify that it has to be English words - so there is an obvious answer which uses all the letters of the alphabet (except the vowels). In Esperanto, "o" is the word for the letter O; "bo" is the word for the letter B, and the other letters of the alphabet are named a bo co cho do e fo go gho ho hho i jo jho ko lo mo no o po ro so sho to u uo vo zo.
NB the letters ch gh hh jh and sh are in fact the letters c g h j and s, but with circumflexes. When it is not possible to type a circumflex, it is standard practice to type h or x instead. The letter uo is a u with a thingy on it.

[football]

'At' can have 17. I'll go for the record. Bat, Cat, Eat, Fat, Gat (geography/ weaponry), Hat, Jat (Nationals), Kat, Mat, Nat, Oat, Pat, Rat, Sat, Tat, Vat, Wat.

[Quizmonster]

Re Football's 'at' list, Chambers Dictionary also offers lat and qat. The 'at' base-word provided the longest - at 19 - list I could come up with, too.

[hertz]

The word "qat" is a good one to bear in mind when playing Scrabble!

[coggles]

Brilliant answers everyone, thank you. I suppose that now the record has been broken, there won't be any more, but I was going to add 'end' to the list - rather appropriately!

[ianmaney]

I suggest you get a dishwasher !!! hehehehe