Word Search

What is Word Search?

Word Search is the quiet puzzle of the newspaper back page: a square of letters, a list of words, and the small pleasure of spotting each one hiding in plain sight. Every grid here has a theme, from fruit and trades to Romanian cities and the night sky, and every word on the list is in the grid exactly once.

The words are in English or in Romanian, following the game language you pick in Play's Settings. Choose Easy for words that read left to right and top to bottom, Medium to add diagonals, or Hard for words that run in all eight directions, backwards included. A new shared grid arrives every day.

How to play

Drag across the letters from the first letter of a word to its last. The selection snaps to straight lines, so a rough swipe still lands on the word, and starting from the last letter works just as well. A found word stays circled in its own colour and is crossed off the list.

• Directions. Easy hides words left to right and top to bottom; Medium adds both forward diagonals; Hard uses all eight directions.
• Hints. A hint lights the first letter of a word you have not found yet, and adds 20 seconds to your time.
• Score. Your score is the time it takes to find every word, plus hint penalties. Lower is better.

Strategy tips

1. Hunt the rare letters. In Romanian, Ș, Ț, Î and  are scarce in the filler, so a word that contains one is quick to find.
2. Start with the long words. They cross the grid and leave fewer places to hide the short ones.
3. Scan by first letter, then by second. Spot every copy of the first letter, then look at its neighbours for the second.
4. Turn the grid in your head on Hard. Read rows right to left and columns bottom to top as if they were new rows.
5. Save hints for the end. Twenty seconds hurts less on the last stubborn word than on the first easy one.

FAQ

Is Word Search free to play?

Yes. Like every game on Play, it runs free in your browser, with no download and no account needed.

Can a word hide inside another word?

No. Each grid is checked so that every listed word reads exactly once, and no listed word contains another one from the same grid.

Can I play the grids in Romanian?

Yes. The grid follows the game language set in Play's Settings. Romanian pages start in Romanian, every other page in English.

What does the daily grid change?

Everyone playing the same language gets the same grid that day, so times are directly comparable on the leaderboard.

Do accented letters count?

In Romanian, Ă, Â, Î, Ș and Ț are letters of their own, so a word with Ș only matches a Ș in the grid, never an S.