Crossword Word Finder

How to use

1. Count every position in the answer, including the letters you already know. The total must be 2–15.
2. Type known letters in their positions and use one underscore (_) for each unknown letter. Include at least one known letter.
3. Press Find words. Compare the candidates with your clue, then replace a blank with another known letter and search again if needed.

Type or paste your input, check the conditions, then press Find words or Enter. Editing a field clears the previous result; it does not run a new search. A faint example is ready to try at first. Focusing it makes room for your own text; an empty field shows the example again after you leave it. Clear removes your input and confirmed result.

How the matches are chosen

The pattern fixes the answer length and the positions of known letters. For c_t, the answer has three letters, starts with C and ends with T. Each underscore matches exactly one letter, never zero letters or several letters.

This is a letter-pattern search, not a clue-meaning solver. It helps when crossing answers have given you some letters. Matches appear alphabetically; the first word is not necessarily the answer to the clue. A pattern consisting only of underscores is rejected so that every search has a useful clue.

Only the first ten matches are displayed. When more words match, a message says that the list is limited. Copy words copies only the displayed words, one per line, without hidden extra results. The selection is deterministic, not a ranking by frequency, meaning or likelihood of answering a clue. There is no next page. Refine your input or conditions if the displayed candidates are not useful.

Examples to try

Enter c_t: the matches include cat, cot and cut. Each has one letter between C and T.

Enter c_tch: catch is a match. The pattern has five positions; the missing letter is A.

Scope and troubleshooting

Searches use a fixed US English list of 78,812 entries derived from ESDB, release 2026.02.25. Only lowercase A–Z entries between 2 and 15 letters are included. Capitalized entries, punctuation, accents and longer words are excluded rather than changed into other spellings. Plurals and other inflected forms can be present. This is a spelling list, not a list of definitions or a guarantee that a particular puzzle accepts a word.

Uppercase and lowercase input are equivalent. Spaces at either end are ignored, but spaces inside the input, numbers and unsupported symbols produce an explanation beside the field. Input longer than 15 characters is preserved so you can edit it; the tool never silently cuts letters off. If the list cannot load, try again. A loading error is different from a successful search with no matches.

Frequently asked questions