First Time Poster...

While on a monotonous drive recently, I invented a game to pass the time more quickly. Many license plates in the US now have three letters followed by three numbers as the standard plate template. This led me to try to discover the shortest English word (and then alternately the longest) that contains the three letters in the exact sequence that they appear on each plate. For example:

AAG would lead to the shortest answer ADAGE (5 letters) and perhaps the longest of INTERNATIONALIZING (18 letters)

HCV would give WHICHEVER (9 letters) and perhaps HALLUCINATIVE (13 letters)

etc.

I realize that not all 3 letter combinations (of which there are 26^3 = 17576) have solutions since combinations like JVB, OQP, or RXF seem to have no English words that contain those letters in those sequences, and thus appear intractable. I offer the following 20 three letter combinations to be solved for the shortest answer below:

1. CJY
2. AUQ
3. FBF
4. GFM
5. GJG
6. GMV
7. IMJ
8. IQB
9. JZT
10. KXY
11. MZB
12. OKV
13. SVF
14. TFV
15. TZU
16. WJE
17. XQA
18. YVC
19. QDM
20. PZB