Word Wheel

What is Word Wheel?

Word Wheel is the word puzzle many newspapers print beside the crossword: nine letters set round a wheel, one of them in the centre. All nine come from one everyday word, and the game is to find as many words as you can in them, every one holding the centre letter, and to spot the nine-letter word that uses the whole wheel.

Here the wheel lists, by length, the common words its letters make, so you always know how many are left to find, and any other real word you know counts as a bonus. You play with Romanian or English words, on three levels, and every day brings a Daily Wheel, the same for everyone, so scores compare directly on the leaderboard.

How to play Word Wheel

• Building a word. Tap the letters on the wheel, or type them on a keyboard, then press Enter. A tapped tile dims until the word is sent; tapping the last letter again takes it back, and Delete does the same.
• The rules. Every word has at least four letters and uses the centre letter. Each letter may be used only as often as it appears on the wheel. A word that breaks a rule shakes and the line under it says why.
• The list. Above the wheel, the words you find fill rows by length, each row showing how many of that length the wheel lists. Real words that are not on the list count too, on a row of bonus words.
• Shuffle. Shuffle turns the eight outer tiles to new places. The letters stay the same, but a new order often shows a word you had missed.
• Points. Four letters score 40, five 60, six 90, seven 130, eight 180 and nine 300, and the nine-letter word adds 500 more.
• Ratings. Find three tenths of the list for Good, half for Very good and seven tenths for Excellent. The bar under the title shows the marks.
• The clock. Easy gives six minutes and three hints, each showing the first two letters of a word still to find. Medium and Hard give five minutes; Hard wheels list fewer words, and longer ones. Find every listed word and the game ends early with 500 points more and 10 for each second left. Finish ends the game whenever you like.
• Languages. Outside the Daily, tap RO or EN to switch between Romanian and English words. In Romanian, diacritics do not count: A stands for Ă and Â, I for Î, S for Ș and T for Ț.

Tips and strategy

1. Start with the centre. Every word needs it, so build outwards from it: put it first, last or in the middle and see which letters fit around it.
2. Look for endings. Common endings such as ING, ED, ER and S in English, or ARE, ATE, URI and ULUI in Romanian, turn one word into several.
3. Hunt the nine-letter word early. It is worth 800 points on its own, and once you see it, many shorter words fall out of it.
4. Shuffle when you stall. A fresh order breaks the patterns your eye keeps returning to.
5. Use the rows. If the four-letter row still has many gaps, short words are the quickest points left.

Frequently asked questions

Is Word Wheel free?

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

Why is my word not accepted?

It is shorter than four letters, it lacks the centre letter, it uses a letter more often than the wheel shows it, you have already found it, or it is not in the dictionary. Proper names and abbreviations do not count. Plurals and other forms of a word are fine.

What are bonus words?

The list shows the common words the wheel makes. Rarer words that are in the dictionary still score their points as bonus words, but the rating counts only words from the list.

What does the rating mean?

It measures how much of the list you found: three tenths is Good, half is Very good and seven tenths is Excellent. The score adds up the points of every word, bonus words included.

What is the Daily Wheel?

Every day everyone gets the same Medium wheel, in Romanian or in English depending on the language you play in, so the scores on the leaderboard compare directly.