Crossword Helper
Enter a pattern with ? for unknown letters.
Find every word that fits your crossword clue.
How to use the Crossword Helper
Type your crossword pattern using ? for letters you don't know. Known letters go in their exact positions. Click Find Words to see all matches from our 170,000-word dictionary. The results are filtered to only words that match your exact pattern length and letter positions.
Pattern examples
- C?OW? → CLOWN, CROWN
- ??RD → BIRD, CORD, FORD, HERD, WORD…
- S???LE → SIMPLE, STAPLE, SETTLE…
- ?IGHT → FIGHT, LIGHT, MIGHT, NIGHT, RIGHT, SIGHT, TIGHT…
Tips for tricky clues
- If you have no letters at all, enter all question marks (e.g.
?????) to see all words of that length. - Crossword answers often favour less common words — try less obvious matches when common ones don't fit crossing letters.
- British crosswords frequently use -OUR, -ISE, and -RE spellings rather than American variants.
- Abbreviations, proper nouns, and plurals are common in cryptic crosswords but less common in quick crosswords.
Common crossword letter patterns
Certain letter combinations appear constantly in crossword grids because they fit so many patterns. -TION ends thousands of English nouns. -ING covers most present participles. -NESS, -MENT, and -LESSare also extremely common endings. If you know the last few letters of a word, those suffixes are a good starting point for working backwards to find the full answer.
Quick crossword vs cryptic crossword
A quick crossword uses straightforward definitions — the clue means what it says and the answer is simply a synonym or direct answer. A cryptic crosswordencodes the answer using wordplay: anagrams, hidden words, reversals, homophones, and double definitions. This helper works best for quick crosswords, though it can narrow down options for cryptics once you have a few confirmed letters.