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Answer: DISTINCT FEATURES

by Brian Chen

Each picture prominently features a part with an unusual name, i.e. one you might find in a listicle of Things You Didn't Know Have Names (example listicles: Hongkiat, Mental Floss, Reader's Digest, BestLife).

In the given order, the parts are:

  • nurDle (toothpaste)
  • tIttle (i)
  • baluSter (stairs)
  • Tine (fork)
  • muntIn (window)
  • luNula (finger)
  • antimaCassar (chair)
  • agleT (shoelace)
  • Ferrule (pencil)
  • armscyE (shirt)
  • diAstema (mouth)
  • punT (wine bottle)
  • Ullage (bottle)
  • zaRf (coffee cup)
  • drupElet (raspberry)
  • Snood (turkey)

These names match the enumerations, and the boxed letters produce the answer, DISTINCT FEATURES.

Author’s Notes

This puzzle started life as a dramatically different puzzle involving identifying the following things, but it was way too hard. (There is a specific resource that makes identifying these things easier, which early testsolvers almost found, but that wasn't intended to be the only way to solve the puzzle.) Can you identify any of them?

The puzzle in its current form was basically directly inspired by the resources and kinds of things that those early testsolvers actually found while testsolving.