Drag across the letters to mark a word
| Drag across letters | Select a word in any direction. |
| Clear the list | Find every word to finish. |
Word Search hides a list of words inside a grid of letters, running in every direction. Drag across a word to claim it, and keep going until the list is clear. There is no timer and no way to lose, which makes it one of the calmest things here.
The reason word searches are so absorbing is that they occupy the part of your attention that wants a job without demanding any decisions. It is pure visual pattern matching, and the small satisfaction of spotting a word is available over and over without any risk attached.
Hunt for the first letter, not the whole word. Scanning the grid for every G when looking for GARDEN is far faster than trying to read words, because your eye can search for a single character almost automatically.
Look for unusual letters. Words containing J, X, Z or Q are the easiest to find because those letters barely appear elsewhere in the grid, so start with them and get them out of the way.
Search one direction at a time. Sweeping the whole grid for horizontal words, then vertical, then diagonal, is more thorough than looking for everything at once and missing the awkward diagonals.
Save the long words for last. They are actually easier, because a long word has more letters to spot and fewer places it can fit once the grid is partly claimed.
Every direction, including backwards and diagonally, which is what makes the diagonals worth a dedicated sweep.
No. It is a relaxed puzzle with no way to lose.
Yes, the wordlist and the letter grid were both built for English.
Searching for a single distinctive letter rather than trying to read whole words.
Nothing at all. The whole of Word Search is built into the page itself, which is why there is no loading bar and no waiting before you can play.