Timmy's mysterious friends

Question

Timmy has a few "friends".

The first friend is a large body of water, but can be fit into two envelopes with one envelope left over. You can argue it's a verb, but it doesn't actually matter.

The second is an animal. It can be represented in the shortest way possible. Its name is pronounced without any accented e sound.

The third is in the stuff humans need. It's also in the lanterns of the world's sky. But here, on this planet, it's rarely alone.

The fourth, if you say its short name, sounds like something you often see. But Timmy lives in the 17th, so he never saw one. You can also say it's the stuff which protects (some parts of) some animals.

Process them through some kind of table (figure out yourself whether it's a time table, a dining table, or something else) and put them together, what do you get? The answer is a single word.

Hint 1:

The 4th's full name contains more than 4 but does sound like something you often see if you say the name which contains less than 4.

Hint 2:

More precisely, between 1 and 4 exclusive.

Hint 3:

The final answer is a word consisting of $n$ letters where $n$ is a composite number less than 7.

Hint 4:

The containses in the first beep refer to letters.

Hint 5:

A specific trainer says the final answer.

Answer 1

Doubtful, incomplete, and mostly-unoriginal answer

(Most of this I actually figured out independently, but on looking at existing answers I see others got there first.)

I think the idea is to

identify four chemical elements, turn them into atomic numbers (periodic table), turn those into letters via A1Z26, and put those together to get the final answer.

We have

first, probably sea/see/C [large body of water: sea; one envelope for one letter: C; verb: see], hence carbon, element 6, hence F;
second, probably bee/B [animal: bee; single-letter representation: B; "no accented e" to distinguish from jay/J], hence boron, element 5, hence E;
third, certainly hydrogen [stuff humans need: water; sky lanterns: stars; not found monatomic on earth], element 1, hence A;
fourth, maybe calcium/Ca/C [short name "Ca" which one could, I guess, pronounce like "car", a thing common now but unknown in the 17th century; maybe this connects with "carapace" as others have suggested, though that seems very unconvincing], element 20, hence T.

This would lead us to

the word FEAT; perhaps hint 5 is referring to trainers as in training shoes and making use of the fact that FEET and FEAT sound similar?!

It seems like it should be enlightening to figure out who "Timmy" is, but

so far I have failed to do so. I take it the bit about "the 17th" refers to the 17th century. The best I've come up with so far, which is clearly no good, is that there is an actor called Timothy Dalton who shares his last name with the early chemist John Dalton. Unfortunately John D. lived in the 18th and 19th centuries, not the 17th, and in any case this is clearly too indirect. The most famous 17th-century chemists are probably van Helmont and Boyle, but I don't see any good connection between either and the name "Timmy". So I guess Timmy isn't a 17th-century chemist, but who or what he might be entirely escapes me at present.

Answer 2

Partial answer

The second is an animal. It can be represented in the shortest way possible. And no, there's no accented é on it.

JAY (thanks @ArchitChandra). A jay is a bird and therefore an animal; it can be represented by the single letter J; and despite sounding like "Jé", it doesn't contain the accented letter é.

The third is in the stuff humans need. It's also in the lanterns of the world's sky. But here, on this planet, it's rarely alone.

HYDROGEN. It's in water (H₂O, the stuff humans need) and in the cores of stars (the lanterns of the world's sky), but here on earth it's usually found together with other elements (from Wikipedia: "most of the hydrogen on Earth exists in molecular forms such as water or organic compounds").

The fourth sounds like something you often see. But Timmy lives in the 17th, so he never saw one. You can also say it's the stuff which protects some animals.

SCALE? We often see scales; digital scales didn't exist in the 17th century (although balance scales did); and scales protect some animals such as reptiles. (I'm less sure about this one.)

Answer 3

The first is

see

because a See is a large body of water in Deutsch and also an active verb (to see) in English. It is comprised by two letters, and two letters fit in two envelopes.

The second is

jay
(thanks @ArchitChandra)

because a jay is a bird (an animal), and in English its name is pronounced the same as the name of the letter which begins jay. also there's that thing with it sounding like it uses é (as in “Pokémon”), but does not.

The third is

hydrogen

which is in water (the stuff humans need), is in the lanterns of the sky (stars), and on earth is rarely alone — either covalently bonded with itself or with oxygen to form water.

The fourth is

carapace

which protects some animals (turtles).
the first syllable is something which we often see — car, — but something which Timmy, in the 17th (century — thanks @randal'thor), wouldn't see — leastways not as an automobile.
these two words — carapace and car — also both match the hints.

So, when concatenated, the letters I have are these:

seejayhydrogencarapace

However, I got nothing. Not even with an --length 1. Not even when I used

seebeehydrogencarapace
cjhcarapace
cbhcarapace
cjhcar
cbhcar

Bummer.

Answer 4

Partial answer adding onto the one by rand al'thor.

The first is probably

'C' - Sea is a water body and see is a verb. The character C also fits in between two lines (envelopes maybe?).

The second could be

'J' - the bird (which is also and animal) Jay fits in well with this. And we could argue that the way it is pronounced could get someone to use the accented é in its spelling.

Answer 5

Partial answer adding to collective thoughts

The first I believe is:

Wave - a oscillating signal is bound by upper and lower envelopes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envelope_(waves) and can also be a large "body" of water

On the second:

I agree with the idea of "Jay", but I also thought of the old argument "is a Bee an animal or an insect?"..so possibility there

Third:

So hydrogen seems a good fit here, but maybe instead of word just it's periodic representation "H"

Fourth:

I thought about this and came up with "Film", all depends on where you are from if you refer to "movies" or "film", no films back in 17th Century, most people will say they have seen one fairly regularly and some animals have a protective film such as fish.

Hope this helps...

Answer 6

Partial Answer

I can see the first one being:

a Loch or Lake, it is a big body of water, and since there are 2 words for the same thing (means it fits into 2 envelopes?) and Loch sounds like lock, a verb. Logic says I should take letter L for Loch, but I don't see how I'm gonna combine 3 consonants in a row, so I guess O is the correct one

For the second one:

I go with Snake, since they are represented with a letter when painted, and it does not have the accented e. (Also, seems to fit better with the next letter)

Third seems pretty clear now:

Hydrogen, no discussion here. It's in the air, in the stars but not alone on earth.

4th is a bit trickier:

I'm not sure about this one, none of the suggested answers fits me good enough here

For now, I have the letters:

OSH-

which dont' seem to form a word, hope it helps