I would say it’s OK, but it’s up to you and your group of you want to set a rule against it.

Thanks, Kurt! I love that variation because it’s hard when you have a larger group but can only play with 4 people. This is a great way to involve more people in the game.

I would say no, just like talking isn’t generally allowed in charades or pictionary, and acting isn’t allowed in catchphrase. It’s a word game, not an acting one. If someone on a team sneakily tries to get away with it, I guess that’s up to the players to decide if they’ve crossed a line or not.

I would say that the team’s turn ends immediately. The clue-giver does not get to give a clue this round, and it’s the other team’s turn to give a clue and guess. The person who guessed shouldn’t have guessed before their partner gave a clue!

I’d say those are still forms of the word in this case. Same word, different tense, so same form of a word.

The rules use MUD and MUDDY as forms.
How about STICK and STUCK?

Barb, it might make it a little difficult for all the other players involved. But technically there’s nothing preventing you from doing so. You wouldn’t want to use a homonym, for example if the password was “peanuts” it’d probably be unfair to make up “leanuts.” But otherwise if you can agree to that house rule with all the players then I’d say go for it.

Great thoughts! Totally agree. I think it’s so interesting that there are so many comments on this post about rule specifics! I guess when you can only give clues one word at a time (as opposed to catchphrase), the clues are very open to scrutiny. Thanks for your thoughts, everyone!

I say no to homonyms as clues. A homonym is a word that is spelled exactly the same as another word, and is pronounced the same way as the other word, but has a different meaning. Such as “fair”, which could mean “a light complexion” or “an equitable judgment” or “a gathering of buyers and sellers, such as a county fair”.
So, if any of those homonyms were used as a clue for one of the other meanings of the word in Password, it would blatantly just be giving the Password as the clue.

The word “address” fits that category as well — it can be used as a noun or a verb, but with different meanings, e.g. as a noun it means a speech or written statement, directed to a group of people… But as a verb, it means a place on street map, a location, such as a person’s home or a business. (And…some people pronounce “address” differently, depending on how they’re using it. And some people pronounce it with an emphasis on the first syllable and some people pronounce it with an emphasis on the second syllable.)

Homonym – words that are spelled the same but have different meanings – e.g. “Lie” could mean “untruth” or “recline”.

Homophone (also known as Heterograph) – words that have the same pronunciation, but different spellings and different meanings – e.g. “too” and “two” and “to”…. Also, “they’re”, “their” and “there”.

Heteronym – words that have same spelling, different meaning, different pronunciation. e.g. “desert”, which could mean “an arid region usually associated with large areas of sand, such as the Sahara Desert” or “to leave, as in someone who decides to desert their military troop”.

Password is largely a game of Synonyms – words with the same meaning, but different spelling AND pronunciation. Or words that are at least somewhat similar in meaning or are related in some way to the Password. So, in that regard, neither homonyms, homophones, heterographs nor heteronyms would be acceptable as clues.

HOWEVER, homonyms and homophones sometimes also work as acceptable clues.… because Password is a verbal game, clue-givers only needs to speak a correct answer, even if the meaning of the answer is different than what’s written as the Password. For instance, if the Password is “Tailor”, some reasonable clues would be “costumer”, “clothier”, “seamstress”. AND, if a clue-giver thinks outside the ordinary, the word “Elizabeth” could also be used as an acceptable clue, if they think they can get their partner to think of “Elizabeth Taylor”. Saying it out loud as an answer, “Taylor” IS the same as “tailor” and would be a winning guess.

That’s what I think.

Hi Jim. First of all, this is all just my opinion! And this has never come up for me and my friends, so for me at least, it’s all hypothetical.

Now I gave this a lot of thought, and I want to make sure things are clear.

For those of us who don’t remember all of our English language terms, a homonym is two words that are spelled the same but mean different things; for example, “lead” the metal and “lead” the verb, or “bat” the fuzzy flying mammal and “bat” the stick you use to hit a baseball. Similar to a homonym is a homophone, which is two words that are pronounced the same but have different spellings, such as “to” and “two” or “knew” and “new.”

I’m not exactly sure which scenario you are asking about, but hopefully I can cover them all.

If the password is “lead,” are you wondering if the clue-giver could actually say “lead” (that rhymes with “seed”) or “lead” (that rhymes with “bed”) as a clue? I would say no to both. Especially if the clue-givers are getting these passwords from a word list or somewhere that doesn’t specify the definition, saying either pronunciation of “lead” out loud would be straight-up saying the password, and that’s not allowed.

If the password is “lead,” are you wondering if a clue-giver could say “metal” as a clue, while another uses “follow” as a clue? To this, I would say yes to both, UNLESS the words are given to the clue-givers in a way that specifies their definition, either by speaking them out loud or clarifying the meaning of the word on paper or something. Basically, if clue-givers are free to interpret the meaning of the word however they want, as long as the word is spelled the same, clues can be given to help players guess either form of the password. I would say this even applies with words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently. For example, if the password were “lead,” a player would win if they said either pronunciation of the word.

As far as homophones (like “knew” and “new”), I would say the same thing applies. If the password is “knew,” a clue-giver would not be allowed to say “new” as a clue word because it sounds just like the password, especially as clue-givers are not allowed to clarify their clues’ definitions or spellings at all.

All that said, perhaps it might be best to just avoid passwords that have homonyms and homophones. 🙂

Just my opinion! If anyone else has any other thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

BUT we’ve had numerous debates about the use of rhymes. We tried to research it and found YouTube videos of the TV show where they did use rhymes as clues. TV Host Allen Ludden did say that rhymes were discouraged because they confuse players — such as if the Password is “rhyme” and the clue is “crime”, it could throw the through-line of clues way off — but he did not say rhymes were against the rules.

Still, I agree it would be far simpler and clearer if no rhymes were allowed (for clues that have no relation other than rhyming with the Password).

The TV game had a team of judges who determined if a clue was acceptable and would buzz their buzzer if it wasn’t. We’re on our own.

(They also buzzed if the player took too long to come up with a clue or a guess. The host would give a warning — “10 seconds” — I think that warning came after 10 seconds had passed. That’s another discussion we’ve had, as some players take forever to give a clue or a response. In that matter, we agreed that the clues and guesses should be made within a “reasonable” amount of time. And we have gotten out a buzzer and/or, when someone was taking an unreasonable amount of time, said “10 seconds” and eventually buzzed the player.)

Because we’ve found that there are sometimes great depths of discussion in determining whether or not a clue was acceptable — sometimes discussions and debates worthy of Talmudic scholars! Some of our players have been very serious about playing — we agreed to incorporate a few other rules for clues:

(one of our group speaks a few languages, so…)
– No foreign language translation of the Password. Only foreign words that are allowed are those that are commonly used in English speech, such as chutzpah, karate, façade or cliché are allowed.)

– A plural can be a correct response. (for example, the Password is “asset” and the guess is “assets”.

– Writing down the clues or taking notes is not allowed. (Yes, in Zoom, we discovered one player, who was doing this and didn’t know it wasn’t allowed.) Nor is using a dictionary or an internet search prior to giving a clue or it being challenged.

– No editorializing or giving a preamble to a clue, such as “I’m going in a different direction with this clue” or “this clue relates to the first clue I gave” or even “wow, this is a hard one”. Stick to the clues.

– If there is disagreement about whether or not a clue is acceptable… try to be impartial and vote on it.

AND, as regards some players being so familiar with and in tune with each other that they connect words in a way other players would not, such as husbands and wives, we simply say those couples should not be on the same team. We do often play more than one game and switch up partners for the subsequent games and sometimes do eventually team the married couples together — it doesn’t always help them, but usually it does. They have some kind of mind-reading going on.

Wow, thanks, that’s very thorough!

Ah, good question! I would say the rules for password would be the same for catchphrase, where rhyming words are against the rules, as are words that begin with the same first letter (like using the word “January” as a clue for jiggle and emphasizing the J sound). So, to the people who used “wiggle” and “revere,” I would say sorry, that’s against the rules! (Though I could see “wiggle” being a little problematic because I think someone might be able to argue that wiggle and jiggle kind of mean the same thing or are at least related…so that one’s a little trickier. Severe/revere, though, that one’s clearly against the rules.) Thanks for asking! I’ll clarify that in the post!

I’m unfamiliar with that game. How do you play? I might have a word list already made that could be repurposed for it.

Thanks, Don! I’m glad you were able to make it work!

Thanks Tracy, that’s a great clarification, especially if you want the game to be a test of word association more than how well two people know each other. I can see how a clue that only two players would understand wouldn’t seem fair, because to the other team, the clue isn’t helpful at all, and part of the fun is being able to use your partner’s clues AND the other team’s.
I do have some questions. When my husband and I were playing and we mentioned my daughter, we were playing with close family members. Everyone knew her name and personality. They may not have seen her stomp quite as much as my husband and I, but what’s the rule for declaring if something is inside information or not? What if players assume all players are familiar with something that they in fact aren’t? Is it difficult when you’re playing with people (on your team or on the other) you don’t know well (since you might not be familiar with what they know or don’t know)? For example, would names of historical people or movie stars be against the rules, since all players might not be equally familiar with them? Have disputes ever arisen? I would love to hear from your experience!

So you think of the clue words yourself. All the players get is the password, and it’s up to them to think of clue words to describe the password. That’s the challenge of the game!

Thanks! 🙂

You’re welcome, Dave!