How to use the solver (twenty seconds, tops)
Say 12-Across has five squares, and the words crossing it have given you an
S in the first square and an A in the third — in
solver shorthand, S?A?E-with-two-mysteries. Click 5 on
the length row, type S, skip a square, type A, and
watch the list shrink to the handful of words it could actually be. Somewhere in
there is the one that makes you say "oh, of course" — read the clue again
and it'll jump out at you.
That last part matters: the solver finds words that fit, but only the clue knows which one is right. Think of the list as a police line-up. The clue picks the culprit.
Let the crossings do the work
A pattern solver rewards a little strategy, and it's the same strategy that makes you a better solver without the tool:
- Fill the crossings first. Every crossing letter you earn divides the candidate list dramatically. With no letters, there are about 8,600 five-letter words; two well-placed letters usually cut that to a few dozen, and three often leave just two or three.
- Rare letters are gold. A J, X, Z or Q in a known square narrows things far faster than an E or S. If you're choosing which crossing to chase down first, chase the one that gives you the unusual letter.
- Endings are cheap wins. A plural clue almost always means the last square is S. Past-tense clues suggest -ED, "-ing" clues suggest ING. Pencil those in before you search and you've earned free letters.
- First letters beat last letters. Knowing a word starts with TH- narrows more than knowing it ends in -SE, because English front-loads its information. If two crossings are equally easy, take the one nearer the start.
"Crossword solver" means three different tools — here's which one this is
Search for a crossword solver and you'll meet three different machines wearing the same name, so it's worth being clear about which one you're holding:
- A pattern solver (this page): letters in, matching words out. Works on any puzzle from any publisher, because it only needs the letters in your grid.
- A clue database: sites where you type another publisher's clue word-for-word and get the answer they printed. We don't do this, and it's a deliberate choice — those clues are the copyrighted work of the constructors and newspapers that published them, and republishing them wholesale isn't something we're comfortable building a site on. (Also, honestly: typing your crossing letters is usually faster than typing the whole clue.)
- An anagram solver: rearranges letters you already have — for jumbles, Scrabble racks, and the anagram half of cryptic clues. That's a different gadget; if you'd use one here, tell us and we'll bump it up the list.
What's in the word list (and what isn't)
The solver searches the ENABLE word list — a public-domain dictionary of about 173,000 English words that's been a word-game standard for decades. It knows plurals, verb forms, and plenty of words you'd swear weren't words (they are; challenge them in Scrabble at your peril). A few honest gaps to know about:
- No names or places. ELVIS, OSLO, and TEXAS won't appear — the list is common words only. If nothing fits and your crossings are right, a proper noun is the prime suspect. (Clues for these usually tip you off with a capital letter or a "___ Presley" blank.)
- No multi-word phrases. Crosswords write ICE CREAM into the grid as ICECREAM, but a dictionary lists neither. If the clue feels like it wants a phrase, trust the crossings over the word list.
- No bang-up-to-date slang. The list is refreshingly free of words your teenager invented last month.
A zero-match result is information too: it's the solver telling you the answer is a name, a phrase — or that one of your crossing letters is wrong, which is the most common culprit of all.
Is using a solver cheating?
Our honest opinion: a crossword is a conversation between you and the constructor, and there's no referee. Looking up one impossible word so you can finish the rest of the grid yourself keeps the fun alive; staring at 14-Down until you resent a newspaper is not a noble act, it's a Tuesday ruined. The trick is to use the solver as a teacher — once you spot the answer in the list, go back and reread the clue until you see why it's the answer. Do that a few times and you'll need this page less and less, which is fine by us.
And if the puzzles you're solving need a rescue mission this often, may we gently suggest ours? Every answer comes from a hand-curated list of everyday words — no obscure rivers, no 1950s bandleaders — because we'd rather you finish smiling than finish searching.
Everything happens on your device
There's no server doing your thinking: the page downloads a compact word list for the length you pick (once, then it's cached) and all the matching happens in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored by us, results appear as fast as you type, and it keeps working on the train when your signal doesn't.
Common questions
Can I type a pattern like S?A?E instead of using the boxes?
Yes — paste it. Copy a pattern in any common notation (s?a?e,
s.a.e, S_A_E) and paste it into the boxes; the solver
sets the length and fills the squares for you.
Why isn't the answer I expected in the list?
Three possibilities, in order of likelihood: one of your crossing letters is wrong (re-check the crossers — everyone's sure until they're not); the answer is a proper noun or a multi-word phrase, which our dictionary doesn't carry; or the puzzle uses a variant spelling. When the list looks wrong, trust it enough to re-examine the crossings — that's usually where the gremlin is.
Can I upload a photo of my puzzle and have it all solved at once?
Not here, and we thought hard about it. Reading a photographed grid means deciphering handwriting in newsprint shadows, and even a perfect scan can't finish a crossword the way a sudoku scanner finishes a sudoku — without understanding the clues, every unfinished slot is just a list of candidates, which is exactly what this page gives you with a lot less squinting. If a scan-your-puzzle tool is something you'd genuinely use, tell us — enough votes and we'll take another run at it.
Does it work for Wordle, Scrabble, or other word games?
Partly. For Wordle, set the length to 5 and type your green letters in their positions — the solver can't handle yellows (right letter, wrong spot), but greens alone often crack it. For Scrabble and jumbles you want an anagram solver, which is on our maybe-list. For hangman: yes, and we won't tell anyone.
Which crosswords does it work with?
Any of them — quick, cryptic (for the definition half, anyway), British or American, printed or digital. The solver only cares about letters and lengths, which every crossword on earth has. Lengths run from 2 to 15 letters, which covers everything up to a full newspaper grid's longest answers.
Is it free?
Completely — no signup, no daily limit, no "unlock more answers" nonsense. Like everything on this site, it's free to use as much as you like.