Word Square

Word Square is the anagram-pool puzzle inspired by the New York Times Spelling Bee. A grid of letters is shown and your job is to form valid words using only those letters. Find as many as you can before time runs out · longer words score more, and every grid contains at least one pangram · a word that uses every letter in the grid.

The pangram rule. Every grid is generated so that at least one valid word uses every single letter exactly once. That guarantees the puzzle has a top achievement to chase · finding the pangram is the standout play. The pangram doesn't have to be common; it just has to be a real dictionary word.

Three sizes. Easy is a 3×3 grid (9 letters, minimum 3-letter words) · short enough to scan in a sitting. Medium is 4×4 (16 letters, more pangram options). Hard is 5×5 with rare letters · Q, Z, X, J · in play, which forces you to find places to use them and rewards a deep vocabulary.

How scoring works. Longer words score more · the default is letter-count-squared, so a 4-letter word scores 16, a 5-letter word scores 25, and a pangram on a 4×4 grid scores 256 plus a fixed pangram bonus. The non-linear curve means a single long word is worth dozens of short ones, which makes the strategic question "do I keep hunting for longer words or do I cash in shorter ones?" interesting throughout the round.

Tips for finding long words. Look for common prefixes (UN-, RE-, IN-) and suffixes (-ING, -ED, -ER, -LY) on the grid · they often unlock longer words you'd miss otherwise. Vowel-heavy grids favour longer words generally; consonant-heavy grids hide the pangram in unusual letter combinations. Q nearly always partners with U, and X is most useful as a final letter.

Part of the PlayMemorize family of brain-training games. Runs entirely in your browser, works offline as a Progressive Web App.