Anchor Words

One four-letter word runs down a column and two more run across it, crossing the spine at two squares that belong to two words at once. Those two squares are the anchors, and they are always blank — the down word has no private gap you could fill by remembering a word on its own. Two more squares are blank, one in each across word, and nine letters are laid out under the lattice. Fill all four so that all three words are real. Every letter you press in is checked against the whole word list, so any real trio wins, not just the one the deal was built from — and a letter that no trio can survive costs you one of your tries.

It runs entirely on your device: 0 network requests, works offline. No ads, no account, nothing to buy, and no betting, money or prizes of any kind.

1. Read the lattice. Squares marked set are printed and never change. Squares showing a dot are yours to fill. The two dashed squares are the anchors — the letters the down word and an across word both read through.
2. Focus the board — click it, or press Tab until it is outlined.
3. Choose a letter with Left and Right (or A and D). The tray is the row of tiles under the lattice, and the cursor clamps at the ends rather than wrapping.
4. Choose a square with Up and Down (or W and S). Only the four blank squares are stops; the printed ones are never in the way.
5. Press the letter in with Enter or Space. If some trio of real words can still be finished with that letter there, it sticks, the tile is spent and the cursor moves on to the next empty square. If nothing can, you are told so and it costs one try.
6. Read the digits. Under each empty square is how many of the letters you have left still fit it. Under each tray tile is how many squares would still take it. A square showing 1 is forced — do that one first.
7. Jump to the next empty square with F instead of walking the cursor there.
8. Click instead, if you prefer. Clicking a tray tile picks it up and costs nothing; clicking a blank square presses the chosen letter into it, which is the move that can cost a try.
9. Fill all four squares before the tries run out. A placed letter is permanent, because it was only accepted when the lattice could still be finished around it.

How do you solve a word grid where three words cross each other?

Start at the crossings, not at the word you happen to recognise. A square shared by two words has to satisfy both at once, so it almost always admits the fewest letters — often exactly one — and pinning it down collapses the choices in both words it touches. The general procedure is: for each empty square, count how many of the letters you still hold could legally go there; fill the one with the smallest count; then re-count, because that placement has just narrowed everything it touches. With three words on one spine that effect compounds — the down word is finished entirely through its two anchors, so each anchor you settle hands you a letter in an across word for free. Constraint solvers call this the minimum-remaining-values heuristic. This game prints the count under every empty square so you can practise reading it rather than guessing.

Is every deal really solvable?

Yes, and it is guaranteed by how the deal is built rather than checked afterwards. Three real words that agree on both shared squares are chosen first, from this site's own list of 1292 common four-letter words. Only then are four squares blanked and their letters dropped into the tray with five spares. So the trio the lattice was built from is always still buildable out of the letters you are handed. On top of that, a letter is accepted only when a completion survives it, so the lattice can never be walked into a dead end — a full board is necessarily three real words.

What does the "Ways" number mean?

It is how many different valid completions the lattice still admits: trios of real words that fit the printed letters, agree on both anchors, and can be paid for out of the letters left in the tray. It is counted by an exhaustive search over the word list, not estimated. It usually starts between one and six and falls as you place letters. It is also where your try budget comes from — a lattice with one way through is much harder than one with five, so the tight ones grant up to five wrong letters and the loose ones only two.

What if I finish it with different words than the ones it was built from?

You win, and the result card shows the words you actually made. That is deliberate, and it is the main thing this differs from a paper fill-in on. A puzzle that marks your letters against one stored answer will call a genuinely correct alternative wrong, which teaches you to guess what the setter was thinking instead of what the words allow. Here every placement is refereed by a search over the whole word list, so any three real words you can pay for out of your tray end the round.

Is there any money, betting or in-app purchase in this?

None, and there never will be. No currency, no prizes, nothing to buy, no lives to refill and no wager of any kind. It is a word puzzle.

How is this different from Word Weave?

Word Weave is two words meeting at a single square. Anchor Words is three words on one spine with two shared squares, and the spine is blank at both of them — which means you cannot finish the down word by recalling it, only by working out what the two across words will let it be. That one change turns the puzzle from vocabulary recall into constraint propagation, and it is why the tray here is larger and the try budget matters more.

Can I play it with a keyboard or a screen reader?

Both, with the same rules — there is no drag, no swipe and no timing anywhere in it. Left and right choose a letter, up and down choose a square, Enter presses it in, F jumps to the next empty square. Every square and every tray tile is a real button with a spoken label saying which word it belongs to, whether it is printed, empty or played, and how many letters still fit it. The live region reads out the squares filled, the tries left and what the last letter did. Printed squares say set, filled squares carry a ✓, refused letters carry a ✕ and spent tiles say used, so nothing on the board depends on telling colours apart.

Does it work offline?

Yes. Once the page has loaded once, the whole game is on your device — the word list, the generator, the solver that referees every letter, and the scoring. Nothing is fetched while you play, and there is no server involved at any point.

Three words, four letters each, drawn from this site's list of 1292 common English four-letter words — so an obscure word you know may not be on it. The shape is always the same: one down word, two across words at least two rows apart, and exactly four blank squares — both anchors plus one more in each across word, so every word keeps two printed letters. The tray holds nine tiles: the four the lattice needs plus five spares drawn from the same three words, which is why a spare can sometimes be a legitimate answer too. The try budget runs from two to five depending on how many completions the deal admits. A placed letter cannot be taken back. There is no timer, no daily streak to protect and no hint button — the digits under the squares are the hint, and they are always on.

Word Weave is the two-word version of this idea: one shared square instead of two, and a smaller tray. Word Hunt rewards reading over recall — six words hidden in a letter grid, claimed by naming their two ends. Letter Chain works the constraint the other way round, with each word starting where the last one ended. Word Ladder turns one word into another a single letter at a time, and Prefix Hunt asks which endings finish a real word.

Bookmark this page (Ctrl+D, or ⌘D on Mac) or install the app — it works offline the next time you need it.