Theatric in the STARCHIEST ten letter puzzle

[Jacki]

I was surprised that THEATRIC was not a common word. So then I tried it with an S for THEATRICS but this was not allowed. I understand that probably theatrical is used more often but I definitely thought theatric would be close behind. What do you think Alan or are you happy to leave it as is?

[Morbius]

I was also surprised theatric was rare, and I also tried theatrics.

[ridethetalk]

FWIW: I didn't find theatric/s but I would concur that it is a word I would consider common...

[Alan W]

The word theatrical is used a lot more than theatric. In books, according to the Google Ngram Viewer:



And online, according to the 14 billion word iWeb corpus:



I'm not convinced that theatric ought to be treated as a common word.

On the other hand, theatrics is a plural noun with no singular form, so ought to be accepted in Chi. It can mean theatrical skills or performances, but frequently denotes histrionic mannerisms. It's been unavailable because it looks like a plural of theatric, but theatric is only ever an adjective. In future theatrics will be accepted, as a rare word.

[Jacki]

Cheers Alan, thanks for reviewing this. Love the new photo.