Word Grid Details

Sixteen letters in a little square. A timer ticking down. And somewhere in there, a big eight-letter word that you’ll only spot once the clock hits zero.

That’s Word Grid in a nutshell. If you’ve ever played Boggle, you’ll feel at home straight away. If you haven’t, don’t worry – it takes about thirty seconds to learn, and this guide will help you find a lot more words once you have.

How it works

You get a 4×4 grid of letters. You make words by joining letters that touch each other – up, down, sideways or diagonally. There are just a few rules:

• Each letter in the word has to touch the one before it.
• You can only use each tile once per word.
• Words need at least three letters.
• Q always comes as a “Qu” tile, and it counts as two letters.

You can play however suits you. Swipe your finger across the letters and let go to submit. Or tap them one at a time, then press Enter (or just tap the last letter again). On a computer you can simply type the word, and the game finds the path for you. If you swipe the wrong way, slide back over the last letter to undo it.

Before you start, you’ll usually get to pick your time: 3 minutes, 5 minutes, or no limit at all.

How the points work

Longer words are worth a lot more – and the jump at eight letters is huge:

One eight-letter word is worth the same as eleven short ones. You won’t find one on every board, but when you do, it can make your whole game.

Let’s try one together

Here’s a practice grid to warm up on:

STAR is sitting right there along the top – 1 point. TILE is easy to spot too. And look: the S in the top corner touches the E at the end of TILE, so TILES works as well, for 2 points.

That trick works again and again. PIRATE (P, I, R, A, T, E) scores 3, and because that E also touches the S, PIRATES scores 5. PLATE becomes PLATES. PETAL becomes PETALS.

Now the Qu tile. Start at Qu, go up to O, up again to I, diagonally to T and across to S, and you’ve got QUOITS. That’s six letters because Qu counts as two, so it’s worth 3 points.

And the big one? Start at P, then O, L, E, S, T, A, R. POLESTAR – eight letters and 11 points in one swipe. It snakes all the way round the top-left of the grid, which is exactly why long words are so easy to miss.

A few that won’t work: STARE looks fine, but the R in the corner doesn’t touch an E. APPLE needs two P tiles and there’s only one. SNAIL fails because the S is nowhere near the N. This grid has 250 words in it altogether, so there’s plenty left to find.

Tips for finding more words

Look for an S next to every word you find. Plurals and verbs ending in S all count as separate words. Each time you find one, check whether an S touches its last letter. It’s the quickest way to double up your points.

Hunt for word endings. -ED, -ER, -ING and -EST turn short words into long ones. If you spot E and D touching, or I, N and G in a little cluster, work backwards from there and see what you can build in front of them.

Check the word counts. Your found words are grouped by length, and each group shows how many there are to find – for example “0 / 2” next to 7 letters. That tells you whether there’s a long word waiting on this board at all. If the 8+ group is there, it’s worth hunting for.

Rotate the grid. The Rotate button turns the board a quarter turn. The letters and paths are exactly the same, but your eyes read them differently. Words that were running backwards or downwards suddenly read left to right.

Don’t ignore the short words. In a timed game, three- and four-letter words are quick to swipe and they add up. Grab the easy ones early, then spend the rest of your time looking for the big ones.

Work round the vowels. Vowels are where words come from. Pick one, look at every letter touching it, and try small combinations. Then move on to the next vowel.

Watch out for British spellings. The word list uses American spellings, so COLOR is accepted but COLOUR isn’t. If a word you know is rejected, the American version might work.

Learn from the ones you missed. When the game ends, every word you didn’t find appears in grey. Tap any word in the list and the game traces it on the grid for you. It’s a brilliant way to train your eye for next time.

Questions people ask

Is it free?
Yes, completely. No account and no sign-up – just open the page and play.

Could I get a board with hardly any words?
No. Every board is checked before you see it, and it always has at least 40 words to find – often a lot more.

Which time limit should I pick?
Three minutes is the classic, and it’s fast and exciting. Five minutes gives you room to look for longer words. No limit is perfect for a relaxed game, and it’s the only mode that saves your progress, so you can come back to it later on the same device.

Why did it say “Letters must touch”?
That happens when you type a word that can’t be traced on the grid, usually because two of the letters aren’t next to each other, or because the word needs the same tile twice.

Will I run out of boards?
Not really. “New board” gives you a freshly shaken grid each time, so there are more than you could ever play.

Over to you

That’s all there is to it. Open Word Grid, pick your time, and see if you can find an eight-letter word before the clock runs out. If you’d like something slower afterwards, Word Hive gives you seven letters and as long as you like to find every word.

Good luck!