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This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles.

If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it a Lonely Word™.

Use the following examples below to find the rule.

LONELY WORD™ NOT LONELY WORD™
CIVIL FRIENDLY
OVAL* RECTANGULAR
DULL HANDSOME
FOCAL SIGNIFICANT
SHINY POLISHED
BIG MINIATURE
CLOWN ACROBATIC
WHOLE* BROKEN
ULOTRICHOUS DELICIOUS
JUSSIEUAN COURAGEOUS
VACUOUS HAZEL-EYED
MINI TINY**
POROUS ENORMOUS**
DOWDY WEE*

* Disputable
** Crowded

And, if you want to analyze, here is a CSV version:

LONELY WORD™, NOT LONELY WORD™
CIVIL, FRIENDLY
OVAL*, RECTANGULAR
DULL, HANDSOME
FOCAL, SIGNIFICANT
SHINY, POLISHED
BIG, MINIATURE
CLOWN, ACROBATIC
WHOLE*, BROKEN
ULOTRICHOUS, DELICIOUS
JUSSIEUAN, COURAGEOUS
VACUOUS, HAZEL-EYED
MINI, TINY**
POROUS, ENORMOUS**
DOWDY, WEE*

Disputable
*Crowded

Hint:

1. Lonely does not mean Alone.

2. I mentioned in comments that fixing the mistake in Ulotricious would not change the fact that is a Lonely Word™. However, it does bring it one step closer to being a Not Lonely Word™.

HTM
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Maria Ivanova
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  • Some more examples would be good, if the answer below was not the intended answer. – Hack-R Sep 17 '16 at 01:59
  • @Hack-R I have added more examples. Believe it or not, it is really hard to come up with examples for this one. – Maria Ivanova Sep 17 '16 at 06:08
  • It might be that a non lonely word is composition of one/more lonely word with "ly" or some other word. A lonely word can't be broken into sub parts, but a non-lonely word can. It may be, I ain't so sure. –  Sep 18 '16 at 17:26
  • Would you like to tell us whether a Not Lonely Word is just a word that isn't a Lonely Word, or whether some words are neither Lonely nor Not Lonely? – Gareth McCaughan Sep 18 '16 at 19:11
  • @GarethMcCaughan, in most cases a lonely word should be one that is not not lonely. However, there are edge cases that could be a bit of a stretch. Still, a word should be either lonely or not lonely. – Maria Ivanova Sep 18 '16 at 19:14
  • What are these two words, ULOTRICIOUS and JUSSIEUAN? – John Sep 18 '16 at 20:35
  • @John, I guess I happen to have a spelling mistake in ulotrichous: http://www.wordreference.com/definition/ulotrichous. But it doesn't change anything. And the other one is: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Jussieuan – Maria Ivanova Sep 18 '16 at 20:40
  • When you say it doesn't change anything, does that mean that changing the I to an H would still let the word be Lonely, or does it just mean that, if ulotricious were a word, regardless of meaning, it would be lonely? – Sconibulus Sep 19 '16 at 14:04
  • Changing I to H would still let the word be lonely. The words have to mean something, i.e. they have to be words. – Maria Ivanova Sep 19 '16 at 14:06
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    @MD I suppose in not lonely words you get two or more words spelled as thou take letters orderly from the beginning. –  Sep 21 '16 at 03:39
  • For example, Friendly - fried, end . Also, ignore the thou, it's you. –  Sep 21 '16 at 04:31
  • @ArkaKarmakar, Lonely is different from Alone. – Maria Ivanova Sep 21 '16 at 05:39

2 Answers2

15

A lonely word has

5 or fewer letters.

A not lonely word has

6 or more letters.

UPDATE
The new examples, of course, mean this is no longer accurate.

Dan Russell
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14

Partial attempt at an answer [heard something in the chat room while passing by on my way out to bed and came back to give it half a shot]:-

A Not Lonely Word™ is one that:-

Can be used as an adjective before a word formed by anagramming some or all of its letters, to give a common phrase

A Lonely Word™ is one that is not a Not Lonely Word™.

Examples:-

FRIENDLY FIRE
RECTANGULAR CAGE
HANDSOME MAN
SIGNIFICANT FACT
POLISHED SHOE
BROKEN BONE
DELICIOUS SLICE
HAZEL-EYED LADY
TINY NIT
ENORMOUS ROOM / MOUSE / MOOR / MORON (?)
WEE EWE (?)

KeyboardWielder
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