Can You Solve This Old-Timey Riddle? #41

Charades, Riddles and Enigmas was the title of a hugely popular puzzle book published in London in the mid-1800s. The book, which ran to several editions in the 1850s and ’60s, was credited to an anonymous author known only as “A Cantab” (that is, a graduate of Cambridge University)—and appropriately, several of its games and punning riddles were themed around university life.

“Why is a fast collegian like the letter Y?” asked one riddle, using a 19th century slang meaning of the word fast to mean “bankrupt,” or “in financial straits.” (The answer being that “he makes Pa, pay.”) It wasn’t just student jokes, either, but student subjects too—alongside simple punning riddles and poems, the book included complex logic puzzles and geometry problems.

The simple puzzle below isn’t quite so demanding, thankfully, but despite its brevity, it’s still something of a challenge. Can you figure it what seven-letter word is being alluded to here?

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