In an inadvertent dig at the sisterhood, the host of UK television game show Countdown was forced to spell out a nasty word during an episode.

Rachel Riley turned to the crowd with an embarrassed face after adding a ‘T’ to the letters ‘S’, ‘L’ and ‘U’.

Clearly mortified, Ms Riley urged fellow host Nick Hewer to “speed things along”, quickly adding another consonant before Mr Reeves had indicated he wanted one.

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But it only got worse for the host when the next letter dished out was a ‘Z’.

Nervous laughter was heard from Mr Reeves, while the audience could be heard descending into fits of giggles.

“Oh well I was going to pick a consonant anyway,” said the contestant.

Mr Hewer simply remarked, “Brilliant”.

The team kept it together though, with the rest of the round going off without a hitch and multiple seven-letter words being made.

Viewers took to Twitter, some voicing their amusement, and others their concern.

Switched through the channels to land on this hahah #countdown #slutz pic.twitter.com/pfZnIYyTho

— alisha smith (@alishasmithh) August 3, 2015