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Word Grid

Find words in the letters before time runs out

Computer players

Swipe across touching letters to make words of three letters or more. Longer words score more, and a word someone else also found scores nothing.

Not in the same room? Play online while you talk on a call, each on your own phone.

More info

How to play

You get a 4 × 4 grid of letters and a timer. Find as many words as you can by joining letters that touch: across, up and down, or diagonally. Each square can be used once in a word, and “Qu” counts as one square.

  • Swipe across the letters and lift your finger to send the word, or tap them one at a time and tap the last letter again. On a keyboard, just type the word and press Enter.
  • Words need three letters or more and must be in the word list (the public-domain ENABLE list). Names and words with capitals or hyphens don’t count.

Scoring

Three- and four-letter words score 1 point, five letters 2, six letters 3, seven letters 5, and eight or more 11. With more than one player, a word that two or more of you found is crossed out and scores nothing, so the rare words win. Everyone plays the same grid at the same time.

Tips

Start with the endings: if you find PLATE, try PLATES, PLATED and PLATER too. Look for common pairs like TH, ER, ST and ING. Short words add up quickly, but one long word can beat ten short ones. When the time is up, the results show some of the words nobody found.