Group party games: the dictionary game

As far as I'm concerned, the best parties are those where, at least for part of the time, everyone participates in a group game. This one is loads of fun for a group of more than six people who have similar education and command of English. All it takes is one dictionary and pencil and piece of paper for everyone. Everyone should write their name on the paper.

One person has the dictionary, chooses an unusual word, announces it to the group, spells it, (and identifies the part of speech if it is not a singular  noun) and asks if anyone knows what it means. The word is disqualified if anyone does and the person with the dictionary needs to find another one.

Once a suitable word has been selected, everyone writes it down, along with their best guess at its meaning. The person with the dictionary writes the word and copies the definition from the dictionary.

Everyone passes their answer to the person with the dictionary, and when he or she has everyone's paper, reads them all aloud. The correct definition, of course, is  read along with everyone's guesses. If necessary, the definitions can be read a second time.

Then everyone votes on the real definition. Once the votes are tallied, the person with the dictionary reveals the correct definition by reading it from the dictionary, not the paper that was included in the stack of everyone else's made-up definitions. If the group chooses to keep score, one point is awarded for each of the following

    •    The person with the dictionary gets a  point if no one votes for the correct definition
    •    Everyone who votes for the correct definition gets a point.
    •    Everyone who wrote a definition that anyone else voted for gets a point

At that point, someone else gets the dictionary for the next round. The game continues as long as everyone wants it to.

Any unknown word fits the rules, but technical terms don't work very well. In fact, if you choose a technical term from your own profession, it practically guarantees that most of the rest of the group will vote for it. Every dictionary will have plenty of offbeat words that sound funny or whose definitions will sound funny.

As people write their definitions, some will seriously try to make a good guess. Others will supply the definition of a similar sounding word. Eventually, someone will make some comic reference to a previous word or some horrible pun. Party games are supposed to unify the group for a while. The dictionary game does so by provoking laughter, and maybe some serious thought, too.