Hilarious family game: Fictionary

Here’s an excellent game for family night, especially if you have older kids home for Christmas: Fictionary. It’s the basis for the boxed game “Balderdash,” but simpler, and the only equipment you need is a large dictionary, paper, and something to write with for each player. It’s best for players at least 8 years old and up, and you need at least four players to make it fun. More is better.

BASIC RULES: The person who’s “it” finds a word that no one is familiar with, and he writes down the real definition. Everyone else writes down a fake definition. The person who is “it” reads them all out loud, and everyone but “it” has to guess which one is real.

Then “it” reveals the true definition. You get a point if you guess the real one, if someone votes for your fake one, or if you’re “it” and no one guesses the real one. Everyone gets a turn being “it” to complete one round of play.

Details: Proper nouns, foreign language words, acronyms, and abbreviations are out. Spell and pronounce the word for everyone, and say what part of speech it is.
If you’re “it,” you can simplify the real definition a bit, as long as you don’t significantly change it. Read all the definitions over silently to make sure you understand and can pronounce everything before reading them aloud. Be sure to shuffle them before reading aloud, so there are no clues about who wrote what.
You can’t vote for your own definition. The person who’s “it” does not vote. If there is one person who is head and shoulders above all the others when it comes to guessing, that person can vote last, so as not to influence the others.

The brilliance of this game is the psychology that goes into it. You have to use your knowledge of the people involved, not just your knowledge of language. And there’s always that one person who doesn’t care about the score and just wants to mess with people.

Here’s some examples from last night:

Smilax:
The real definition turned out to be:
-A kind of oak or bindweed
Fakes:
-A state of disquiet, nervousness
-A smiling climax
-A substrate of xylem in some ferns
-A type of mountain sheep bred in Algeria
-A kind of soap commonly used up until the 19th century, when industrialized factories rendered it obsolete [this one was a joke, as the smarty pants who wrote it thought the pun on “rendered” was too good to pass up]
-wiggly worm

Purdah
The real definition:
-In India, a curtain used to screen women from men and strangers
Fake definitions:
-Disgrace
-Keeping from one another
-A type of ink used commonly in newsprint
-a fog, especially one though to carry illness
-Scottish term for spitting noises
-A very purdy thing

Drogue
Real definition:
-A cone-shaped device towed behind an aircraft as a target
Fakes:
-A unit of measurement equal to two miles
-Boring, dull
-Dreaded, a tyrant
-The feeling of morning dew
-Swamp, marsh, Elijah

At one point, the person who was “it” had to drag one of the less scholarly players into the other room to find out what was meant by “MARGOLD GROWING PLAL.”

Have fun! It’s a good game, and thorough.

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3 thoughts on “Hilarious family game: Fictionary”

  1. Hi, maybe you would like to know that Fictionary Game has been published in the App Store:

    https://apple.co/2ShOyPJ
    https://apple.co/2KItyiG

    It’s a Pass & Play game, that is, the device is passed among all of the players, so you have to play face to face with other people, like in a Board Game.
    It is the classic Dictionary Game but you don’t need paper, pen neither a dictionary, it is all inside the device.

    It includes over 600 carefully selected words along with their definitions.

  2. With the idea of family fun… We wanted to thank you for the wonderful review/ suggestion of the air hockey table! On your recommendation, we bought it for our children. They love it!! It is the perfect size for them and for our space- challenged home. Thank you!!

    1. We did too – it’s been a big hit! I hope I got it early enough that Amazon still paid commission!
      That magic sequin pillow too – perfect for my 11 y-o but popular with the whole household.

      We always played the dictionary game at family gatherings with all the cousins when I was a kid; always fun and worked for a fairly wide age range. Telestrations is a good one these days too (without the box version, just with pens and paper.) My sil even used it once as a baby announcement, though it did not accurately get around the circle…

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