Word search online

How to play

The list of words you are looking for sits under the grid. When you spot one, drag your finger or mouse from its first letter to its last. Dragging on a small screen is not always tidy, so you can also use two taps: the first letter, then the last. If the word is there, it lights up in the grid and is crossed out in the list. With a keyboard, Tab moves along the letters and Enter sets a start and an end.

Words in eight directions

A word can run right, left, up, down or diagonally in any of the four diagonals, so do not only read from left to right. A handy approach is to find the first letter of a word and look in every direction around it. A rare letter, such as the Q in SQUASH or the J in JUDO, makes a good starting point. Words may cross on a shared letter, so a letter you have already used can sit in a second word as well.

Two levels and four themes

Easy is a 12 by 12 grid with 10 to 12 words. Hard is 15 by 15 with 12 to 14 words, so there are more letters to scan and more words to keep track of. You also pick a theme: animals, food, school or sports. Each theme has its own list of more than twenty words, and a different selection is drawn for every game. Two words where one sits inside the other, such as CAT and CATTLE, never share a grid, so you never have to wonder whether a piece of a word counts.

Make your own word search

Choose “Make your own word search” above the game and type the words you want: the names in a class, this week's spelling list or the guests at a birthday. The grid grows to the size it needs, 10 by 10, 12 by 12 or 15 by 15. If a word does not fit, you see it at once and can shorten the list. Add a title, press print and you get a sheet with the grid and, under it, the words to find. For an answer sheet, switch on “Show the solution” and print again. The paper holds only the grid, the title and the list, with no menu and no ads.

The puzzle of the day

Every day there is one puzzle per level that is the same for everyone. The puzzle and its theme follow from the date in Amsterdam, so you can compare notes with a housemate or a classmate without either of you needing an account. Your best time per level stays on your own device.

How the grids are made

A generator picks the words and places them one by one, the longest first. A word gets a random spot and direction, and if it does not fit there, the generator tries the next spot. It then fills the empty squares with letters taken from the words themselves. The same input gives the same grid, which is how the puzzle of the day stays the same for everyone.

Does Skillido store anything?

Your best time per level is kept on your own device. A game in progress is not saved: close the page and you start again next time. We do not count who played what, and there is no account.

More games and practice pages

For another kind of puzzle, try sudoku, or see the full list of brain games. For words with a score, there is the spelling test. The Dutch version of this page is woordzoeker.