Crossword Solver

You know some of the letters and how many are missing — this finds every word that fits.

The dictionary (570 KB) downloads the first time you type, then works offline. Nothing you enter is uploaded.

Dictionary: the public-domain ENABLE word list (172,823 words), compiled by Alan Beale and M. Cooper. Source and licence. This is not the TWL or Collins tournament list.

🔒 Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is uploaded or stored on a server.

Type the letters you have and mark the gaps. ?, _ and . all mean “one letter I don't know”, so c?t, c_t and c.t are the same query and you can use whichever your puzzle app prints. If you only know the length, leave the pattern empty and use the length box instead.

Also on Txtset: score the letters you already hold · solve a jumble rather than a pattern.

This solves patterns, not clues. It cannot answer “Seven letters, capital of Peru” — that needs a licensed clue-and-answer corpus, which we do not have and will not fake. What it does do is the part you get stuck on once a few crossing letters are filled in, and it does it against 172,823 words rather than the few thousand a small list would give you.

Filters stack on top of the pattern: a letter the word must contain, letters it must not contain (useful when a crossing answer has ruled them out), starts-with and ends-with, and a common words only switch for when the full dictionary is returning obscurities a puzzle would never use.

Matching is done with a compiled expression against only the words of the right length, so it is instant even on a big result set. Your pattern is escaped before it becomes an expression — a stray bracket cannot break it, and a typed .* cannot turn a lookup into a scan. Everything runs in this tab; nothing you type is uploaded.

How to use

  1. Type the pattern, using ?, _ or . for each unknown letter.
  2. Or leave it blank and enter just the length.
  3. Narrow it with contains, excludes, starts with or ends with.
  4. Tick common words only if the results are too obscure.
  5. Copy or download the matches.

Examples

_ross___d
→ crossword
c?t
→ cat, cot, cut
Length only
Length 5, contains q, excludes u → the handful of five-letter q-words with no u.

Frequently asked questions

Can it answer a crossword clue?
No. It matches patterns — letters and gaps. Answering “Seven letters, a Greek muse” needs a database of clues paired with answers, which is a licensed product. One clear sentence about that beats a feature that returns nothing useful.
Which wildcard character should I use?
Whichever you like: ?, _ and . are treated identically, because different puzzle apps and newspapers print different ones.
Can I search by length alone?
Yes — leave the pattern empty and fill in the length box. Combine it with contains and excludes to cut the list down.
Why is my search capped at 500 results?
Because a bare length search matches thousands of words and no one reads past the first screen. The count above the results always shows the true total, so you know how much you are not seeing.
Which dictionary is used?
ENABLE, 172,823 public-domain words. It is deliberately large, because a crossword answer is often exactly the obscure word a small list would omit. Tick common words only when that is not what you want. Source and licence.
Is my puzzle sent to a server?
No. The dictionary is downloaded once and every search after that runs in this tab.

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