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Someone asked me a riddle today please help me answer.

Which five letter english word is it?
Where the 1st letter is the last letter.
The last letter is the 1st letter.
The middle letter is the second letter.
The second letter is the fifth letter.

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  • $\begingroup$ Well, since it's a riddle, it's probably a trick question, but the literal read on it is that the first, second, third, and fifth letters are all the same, and the fourth one may or may not differ. $\endgroup$
    – Parthian Shot
    Mar 25, 2015 at 0:50
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    $\begingroup$ It's 1st:A last:Z 2nd:B 5th:E ... ZEBRA $\endgroup$
    – StoneyB
    Mar 25, 2015 at 0:51
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    $\begingroup$ It's not a particularly difficult puzzle, but this question may have been better suited to the Puzzles SE than ELU. $\endgroup$
    – Ian MacDonald
    Mar 25, 2015 at 3:54
  • $\begingroup$ An interesting riddle but not a question for EL&U. $\endgroup$
    – Centaurus
    Mar 25, 2015 at 13:55

2 Answers 2

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Ah, having written this, I've just noticed StoneyB's comment above. So here is a rehash of StoneyB's answer in case you didn't read the comments: Answer:

Zebra: Z(last letter of the alphabet) E (fifth letter of the alphabet) B (second letter of the alphabet) R A (first letter of the alphabet).
So the first letter of the word is that last letter (in the alphabet), and so forth.

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  • $\begingroup$ the OP forgot to accept your answer. $\endgroup$
    – Albrecht Hügli
    Jan 15, 2019 at 13:43
  • $\begingroup$ @AlbrechtHügli Thanks :-) I think the OP never made it over to puzzling from English Language and Usage stack exchange! (Where the question was first asked) $\endgroup$
    – Araucaria - Not here any more.
    Jan 15, 2019 at 13:46
  • $\begingroup$ I'll ask in the meta if in such cases there is a possibility that the answer is accepted by other users. But they will certainly say that the vote ups are saying this. yes, they say: puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6456/… $\endgroup$
    – Albrecht Hügli
    Jan 15, 2019 at 13:49
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Answer:

ZEBRA

Explanation:

In each of the four hint-giving lines, the first part refers to the position within the five-letter word and the second part refers to location in the alphabet.

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