How to play Word Grid

By Ari Hlynsson · 1 player · Updated 10 September 2026

Trace as many words as you can in three minutes. Longer words are worth much more than short ones, so a single six-letter word beats seven three-letter ones.

The rules, step by step

1. 1

   Tap a letter to start a word. Every letter after it must touch the one before — sideways, up, down or diagonally.

2. 2

   The word you are building shows under the grid. Tap the last letter again to take it back off if you mis-tapped.

3. 3

   Press Enter, or the Enter button, to submit it. A word that is too short, already found, or not in the list is refused and says which.

4. 4

   No letter may be used twice in one word. The same square is available again in the next word.

5. 5

   Three letters score 1, four score 2, five score 4 and six score 7. Six is the longest a word can be here.

6. 6

   When the three minutes are up the board shows your score and the longest words you missed.

Tips that change how you play

• Look for the ending first, not the beginning. Squares holding S, ED, ER or ING-shaped runs turn one word you have already found into a longer one worth twice as much.
• Work outward from the vowels. Every word needs one, and on a sixteen-square board there are usually only five or six — which means most of the grid is only reachable through a handful of squares.
• A word you cannot submit still tells you something. If the grid refuses it, the letters were either not touching or the word is outside this list, and both are worth knowing before you spend ten more seconds on that corner.
• Do not stop at three letters. Seven three-letter words score the same as one six-letter word, and take about five times as long to find.

A worked grid

Say the top-left four squares read C, A, T going across and S sitting under the T. CAT is there for one point, and because the S touches the T, CATS is there for two — the same three seconds of work for twice the score. That is the whole habit this game rewards: when you find a word, look at what touches its last letter before you move on. Now suppose there is an E under the A. CATE is not a word, but ATE is, and so is the reverse trace of it. The point is that four squares in a clump usually hold three or four words rather than one, and the way to find them is to stay in the clump instead of scanning the whole board again for a fresh start.

Mistakes that cost beginners the game

Reading the grid like text, left to right along the rows.

The end of one row does not touch the start of the next, so reading in lines finds almost nothing. Pick a letter and look at the ring of squares around it — that is the shape the game is actually made of, and it is why a letter in the middle is worth far more than one in a corner.

Hunting for one long word instead of taking what is there.

A six-letter word is worth seven points and a four is worth two, so four short words beat one long one on a clock. Take every word you see, then go looking. The score at the end rewards what you found, not what you nearly found.

Giving up on a corner because the first letter looks useless.

A corner square touches only three others, which cuts both ways: there are few words through it, but the ones there are tend to be long, because a corner is usually where a word has to start or finish. Check the corners once at the beginning and then leave them.

Common questions about Word Grid