Food and drink
Synonyms for stale
The synonym for stale recorded in this bank is hardened, in the sense "no longer fresh, especially of bread, having lost its softness". Below it sits the sentence that fixes that meaning, the same sentence with the swap made, and the words that only look close.
The synonym for stale
- hardenedadjective, in the sense "no longer fresh, especially of bread, having lost its softness"
One pair, read and signed off by a human before it shipped. The bank records a synonym per sense, so a second one appears here the day stale is audited in a second meaning.
no longer fresh, especially of bread, having lost its softness
The bread was stale and crumbled instead of tearing.
The true synonym
hardened
Same sentence, swapped: The bread was hardened and crumbled instead of tearing.
Close but different
Wrong tiles, chosen to be tempting rather than absurd. The reason line above takes the nearest one apart; the rest fail the same sentence for their own reasons.
- fresh
- moist
- ripe
Where stale turns up in the game
stale is the word under test in one puzzle, at Tier 1, Foothills. It also sits on the board as one of the three wrong tiles in five other puzzles, where the answer is a different word entirely.
4 of the 5 puzzles where stale is the trap
- boringadjective, Tier 1, Foothills. The answer there is slow, in the sense "so lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness", and stale is on the board beside it.
- lusciousadjective, Tier 1, Foothills. The answer there is juicy, in the sense "richly sweet and juicy in taste", and stale is on the board beside it.
- unripeadjective, Tier 1, Foothills. The answer there is green, in the sense "not yet fully grown or ready to eat", and stale is on the board beside it.
- aromaticadjective, Tier 2, Treeline. The answer there is fragrant, in the sense "having a pleasant and distinctive smell", so stale is there to be ruled out.
Play stale
The bank on this page is the bank the game plays from, so stale reaches you as a board rather than a definition: the sentence first, four tiles, and the meaning after you choose.
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Closest first: other food and drink words at Foothills, then the same tier across the rest of the library.
Why the near miss missed, in the game as well as here
Synonym Stack plays from this exact bank. stale carries 1 written reason line, and the game shows them the moment a round ends, whichever tile you tapped.