Word search

How to play

A word search is a grid of letters with words hidden in it. The words to find are listed beside the grid (below it on a phone). Each word reads in a straight line, and letters can be shared where two words cross.

1. Tap the first letter of a word you have spotted. It turns blue.
2. Tap the last letter of the same word. If it's one of the listed words, it stays highlighted and is crossed off the list.
3. If you change your mind, tap the blue letter again to start over. Tapping the last letter first and the first letter second works too.

With a mouse you can also drag from the first letter to the last. With a keyboard, use the arrow keys to move around the grid and press Enter or Space to choose a letter.

Worked example

In this small grid, two words are hidden: BIRD and SUN.

Example: BIRD starts at the B in the top left corner and runs diagonally down to the right. Tap the B, then the D, and the four letters B, I, R, D are marked. SUN is on the bottom row: tap the S, then the N.

Daily puzzle, sizes and themes

Each theme and size has its own daily puzzle, which changes at midnight where you are. When you've finished, press Next puzzle for another one, as many times as you like. A puzzle you've started is remembered in this browser, so you can come back to it.

• Small, 10 × 10: 10 words that read left to right or top to bottom. A gentle start.
• Larger, 13 × 13: 14 words that can also run diagonally, always reading from left to right.

Words never run backwards here, so you can always read a word in its normal direction.

Tips

• Look for unusual letters first. A Q, Z, X or J in a word is easy to spot in the grid.
• Run your eye along one row at a time, looking for the first two letters of a word together.
• Long words are often easier to find than short ones, because they cross more of the grid.
• If the letters feel small, choose Text size and colours at the top of the page.
• Stuck? Show answers marks every word, and Print with answers puts the solution on a second page.

How these puzzles are made

A program builds each puzzle from word lists chosen by hand for this site. Before a puzzle appears, the program checks that every listed word is in the grid exactly once and that no rude words have formed by accident among the filler letters. If a grid fails a check, it is thrown away and a new one is made. Automated tests run the same checks on thousands of puzzles whenever the puzzle-making code or the word lists change.