How to Use Known Letters and Wildcards

Type the letters you already have in their correct positions, and use ?, _ or * for every square you do not know - you can mix any of these three wildcard characters freely within the same pattern. The length of your pattern tells the solver how many letters the answer must have, so leave a placeholder character for every blank square rather than skipping it.

What This Tool Can Help With

It's built for exactly the situation where you're partway through a crossword: you know some of the letters from crossing answers, but not the whole word. Enter what you have, and the solver returns every word in its dictionary that fits the pattern, so you can compare candidates against the clue yourself.

Example

Entering C_A_T finds five-letter words with C in the first position and A in the third, such as CHART or CRAFT. Entering A??LE finds five-letter words starting with A and ending in LE, such as ANKLE or ADDLE.

Tips for Narrowing Down Answers

• Fill in every letter you are confident about first - each known letter narrows the results significantly.
• If you get too many results to scan comfortably, try solving one more crossing answer first so you have another letter to add to the pattern.
• Double-check the exact word length required by the crossword grid - an extra or missing wildcard will change which results come back.
• When several results fit the pattern, read the original clue again and rule out any that do not match its meaning.

Frequently Asked Questions