How to Play Word Search
Rules, strategy, and tips — then play today's Word Search free. Ready to go deeper? Word Search strategy: anchor on the rarest letter.
🔍What is a word search?
A word search hides a list of words inside a grid of letters. The words can run in any straight line — left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top, or diagonal in either direction. The leftover letters are decoys. Find every word on the list to solve the puzzle.
📜The rules
- Each listed word appears exactly once in the grid, in a straight line, in one of the eight directions.
- On DailyGrid: drag (or tap the first and last letter) across a word to claim it. Claimed words are highlighted and checked off the list.
- Words can share letters where they cross.
- Find all the words to win — the list is themed, which is itself a hint about what you're looking for.
🎯Strategy
Getting started
- Hunt rare letters. Don't read the whole grid — scan for the most unusual letter in your target word. Q, Z, X, J, K, V, and Y stand out; a word containing one has only a handful of possible hiding spots.
- One word at a time. Pick a word, sweep the whole grid for it, then move on. Random hopping re-scans the same rows and wastes minutes.
- First-two-letters sweep: for a word like "PLANET", scan only for "PL" pairs. Two-letter anchors are far faster to spot than whole words.
Level up
- Check all eight directions from every candidate letter — most missed words are sitting backwards or diagonal from a letter you already checked.
- Use the theme. If today's list is kitchen words, expect OVEN-adjacent letter clusters; your eyes can prime for likely combinations (CH, SH, TH).
- Longest words first. Long words have fewer places to fit, so they're paradoxically easier to find — and clearing them shrinks the haystack for the short ones.
Pro tips
- Trace rows with a finger or cursor as a ruler — your peripheral vision catches letter pairs your foveal reading misses.
- Stuck on the last word? Read the grid column by column instead of row by row; a fresh scan direction reveals what your routine hid.
- Backwards words often hide near the grid edges — check the borders last.
⚠️Common mistakes
- Reading every letter left-to-right, top-to-bottom like a book. Word search is a scanning game, not a reading game.
- Forgetting diagonals — roughly a third of hidden words run at an angle.
- Giving up on a word after one sweep. Re-scan anchored on a different letter of the same word.
❓FAQ
- How does a word search work?
- Words from the list are hidden in the grid in straight lines — horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, forwards or backwards. Find them all to solve.
- What's the fastest way to find words?
- Scan for rare letters and two-letter anchors instead of reading rows. See the strategy section above.
- Is the DailyGrid Word Search free?
- Yes — a new word search every day at midnight ET, no account needed — the daily puzzles are free. Always. One of ten daily puzzles on DailyGrid.
- Where can I learn the other games?
- See all ten DailyGrid guides.