[unreality]

Start with one letter that is a word, and keep adding letters, one at a time, inserting them at any point in the word. After each iteration, your word must still be a word!

Like so:

a

as

ask

mask

or

i

is

ins

tins

tines

[etc]

Obviously those aren't the longest words you can make starting with 'a' and 'i'. What are?

And as there aren't any other legal one-letter words, what if you could start off with any letter and then every letter after that had to be a word?

[Izzy]

I know we get the idea, but technically Izzy's ended at "ah" because his next word was "hat" which required scrambling. Sorry Izzy.

I'm female. And in that case, I would have rearranged 'ah' to be 'ha', making 'hat' a legal move.

[unreality]

fractions

fraction

faction

action

actin (a protein found in muscles)

atin????

tin

in

i

the only weak point is "atin", which I don't think is a word

some other minor ones:

a

am

arm

harm

charm

charms

i

in

gin

gain

gains

gainst

against

[Guest]

I'm female. And in that case, I would have rearranged 'ah' to be 'ha', making 'hat' a legal move.

I apologize again. Please insert she where he is. And for nitpicking too.

[unreality]

add "stringers" as well

nice, 9 letters! Probably the longest legit one yet, unless I missed one on an earlier page

[HoustonHokie]

[spoiler='10

letters']a

am

tam

tame

tamed

teamed

steamed

streamed

streambed

streambeds

a

an

ane

anes

sanes

stanes

stances

stanches

staunches

staunchest

a

an

tan

tang

stang

strang

strange

stranger

strangers

stranglers

n

in

pin

ping

oping

coping

comping

compting

competing

completing

I must confess I don't know the definitions of all of these, but they all appear in the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, so they must be real words, right? And I think this is as far as we can go - I can't make any of these into 11 letter words.

[unreality]

wow Four ten-letters ;D You just topped everything lol. Btw you could start the fourth one with 'i' not 'n' if you wanted it to be all words.

Anyway - yeah, wow. 11 is probably impossible. If there are more ten-letters, then it might be possible, but I'm not sure.

The only thing I can think of is adding onto yours like this:

a

an

ane

anes

sanes

stanes

stances

stanches

staunches

staunchest

staunchiest

but I don't know if that's a word - it sounds right but you never know

[HoustonHokie]

wow Four ten-letters ;D You just topped everything lol. Btw you could start the fourth one with 'i' not 'n' if you wanted it to be all words. yeah - I noticed after I posted, but it was too late to edit.

Anyway - yeah, wow. 11 is probably impossible. If there are more ten-letters, then it might be possible, but I'm not sure. Actually, I found 6 or 7 more 10-letter words, but I questioned the validity of some of the 2 or 3-letter words that started them off. Although they appeared in the Scrabble Dictionary, I didn't find definitions that weren't some kind of abbreviation, so I didn't post them.

The only thing I can think of is adding onto yours like this:

a

an

ane

anes

sanes

stanes

stances

stanches

staunches

staunchest

staunchiest

but I don't know if that's a word - it sounds right but you never know - it's not in my dictionary (merriam-webster.com)

[unreality]

yeah, this search failed too

[Izzy]

Okay, here's a go to get it done the right way.

i

in

pin

pint

print

sprint

spirant

aspirant

aspirants

a

as

has

hast

haste

chaste

chasten

chastens

i

in

sin

sing

using

busing

busting

bursting

bur-string (as in a string of prickly seed case or flowerhead that clings to animals or clothes)

burr-string (same as above, it's both 'bur' and 'burr')

burr-strings

burrs-strings (okay, probably pushing it at this point.. )