- How does the pattern work?
- Type the letters you already have, and put a "?" for every letter you don't know. A pattern of t?l??t means six letters, where positions 1, 3 and 6 are t, l, t and positions 2, 4, 5 can be anything. The solver returns every dictionary word that fits exactly — same length, same fixed letters.
- Why don't I see longer answers?
- The dictionary tops out at 7-letter words. It's the same word list our Anagram Solver uses — about 50,000 common English words from Webster's Second International (1934, public domain). If your crossword answer is longer than 7 letters, this tool won't find it; a themed-clue solver or a larger-dictionary tool will work better.
- Why doesn't the answer to my NYT clue show up?
- Three usual reasons. (1) Themed crosswords often use answers that aren't in a basic dictionary — multi-word phrases, proper nouns, pop-culture references. We don't have those. (2) The dictionary is common English only — no slang, no foreign loanwords, no tournament Scrabble words. (3) The answer is longer than 7 letters. If your puzzle is the NYT Saturday or a cryptic, you'll likely need a different tool with a bigger, themed dictionary.
- What's the difference between this and the Anagram Solver?
- The anagram solver takes a bag of letters and finds every word you can build (any order, any subset). The crossword solver takes a pattern with fixed positions and only returns words that match the pattern exactly. Use the anagram solver when you don't know where the letters go; use the crossword solver when you do.
- What do the filters do?
- Starts-with, ends-with, and contains are extra substring filters. They apply AFTER the pattern match. So if your pattern is ????? and you set starts-with to "re", you get every 5-letter word starting with "re". Handy when a clue tells you part of the answer but not the position.
- Is anything sent to a server?
- No. The dictionary lives in your browser. Every match is computed on your device. We don't see your puzzle, your patterns, or the words you find.
- Why no proper nouns?
- The base dictionary (Webster's 2nd) excludes them on purpose — it's a common-English word list, not an encyclopedia. Most crossword answers are common words; for clues that need a person, place, or brand name, a dedicated crossword dictionary is the right tool.
- Can I use uppercase letters?
- Yes. The solver lowercases everything before matching, so T?L??T and t?l??t return the same matches. Spaces are stripped silently, too — paste in whatever's easiest to type.
