Words ending in -u

im desperately trying to help my little sister find words in U and even though iv done A level english i cant for the life of me think of words ending in the letter u. Rather random i will agree but running out of ideas!!!

Thanks,

Scott

I can think of "flu" (actually a contraction of "influenza" but now considered to be a real word) and "gnu". In American English "through" is sometimes contracted to "thru", but I'm not sure if that counts.

Scotty210 said:

im desperately trying to help my little sister find words in U and even though iv done A level english i cant for the life of me think of words ending in the letter u. Rather random i will agree but running out of ideas!!!

Thanks,

Scott

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Here are many. Some are proper names, but most are not. They are all entries in Webster's Third Dictionary. I'll list the most common ones first.

adieu, beau, cru, eau, ecru, flu, gnu, guru, jehu, lieu, manitou, manitu, milieu, mu, nu, Peru, tau

aku, ausu, battu, batu, biacuru, bu, bussu, cachou, carajuru, cebu, lhimu, clou, ecu, feru, fou, gaspergou, gou, hu, jacu, jararacucu, khmu, kru, ku, lu, mafu, maidou, macu, maku, maniu, mi-lu, motu, mou, mru, mundurucu, nu-tzu, ombu, palau, perdu, piu, pou, pu, ringatu, sajou, shu

Menu and tofu are the only ones coming to my mind (which haven't been mentioned already).

Mike's got most of them, I reckon.

What about 'bureau'? (And another thing: I know the meaning 'department' works in AmE, but what about the item of furniture?)

b

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Things such as "travel bureau" or some sort of "governmental bureau" (FBI, for example ;-)) work in AmE, too. As for furniture, I would expect a bureau to be a chest of drawers (for clothing).
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And YOU?

Shad said:

And YOU?

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Yep, we all seem to have missed the obvious, which just proves that working professionally with languages doesn't make you very good at this sort of game.

As well as "you", of course, we also have the archaic singular form "thou". We also have "situ" (as in: "in situ") and also "fugu", a species of pufferfish served (illegaly in most cases) as a delicacy in Japan -- if not prepared perfectly correctly, it can be poisonous. It's also known as "takifugu".

Philly said:

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As for furniture, I would expect a bureau to be a chest of drawers (for clothing).
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Close, but no cigar ;-) In BE it's a sort of writing desk (but with drawers); a BE bureau isn't used for clothing (at least, not where I come from).

b

Try this: http://www.onelook.com/?w=*u&scwo=1&sswo=0

BobK said:

Mike's got most of them, I reckon.

What about 'bureau'? (And another thing: I know the meaning 'department' works in AmE, but what about the item of furniture?)

b

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I'm sure I missed many. My Webster's Third allows searching on rhymes. I just chose "boo". I could have also chosen now, gnaw, know, etc, but it takes a lot of time.

In AE, a bureau is usually a chest of drawers for clothes.

Red5 said:

Try this: http://www.onelook.com/?w=*u&scwo=1&sswo=0

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I tried "One Look" but one gets pages and pages of garbage to sort through.

Another site that is sometimes useful is www.allwords.com but it will not search on a single letter ending.