MooT Question Icon
According to the New Yorker Magazine , its name was derived from a phrase that means "word war" in Croatian; what game's name is it?




Etymology, Etymology, and more Etymology
as well as grammar, usage, euphemism, slang, jargon, semantics (meaning), linguistics, neologism, idiom, word origin, syntax, dialect, lexicon (vocabulary), diction, pidgin, synonym, antonym, homonym, cant, argot, lingo, and redundancy.


A picture of a moot game

The critically-acclaimed board game MooT consists of tough questions about the nuances of the English language.
To join our mailing list and get free brain-twisting MooT questions sent to you irregularly, enter your email address and then press submit.

E-Mail address:




Back to home page



Answer: Scrabble

According to the New Yorker Magazine, the game's name comes from the Croatian skra abbu, word war.

As many of you have pointed out, this of course is massively incorrect. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary the source is unknown; however, according to the Online Etymological Dictionary the proprietary name Scrabble is "probably from scribble-scrabble, hasty writing, a reduplication of scribble."


Please note that these are draft questions for the board game MooT.
If you spot an error or disagree with anything I've said here,
please let me know and I'll fix it.
(the Mootguy)

Copyright 1998-2008 Blair Arts Ltd. All rights reserved.