Cryptogram — free online letter cipher puzzle

A cryptogram is one sentence with every letter swapped for a different one. The swap is consistent all the way through, so every K in the puzzle is the same real letter, and no letter ever stands for itself. Your job is to work out which is which until the sentence reads. The sentences here are traditional proverbs, which helps: once you have half of one, the rest of the phrase is often something you already know by heart.

A run is three puzzles against one clock, and the total time is your score. A hint fills in one letter and adds ten seconds, so it is always available and never free. Free to play, nothing to download, and a new set of three every time.

How to play

• Tap a letter in the sentence, then tap a letter on the keyboard to say what you think it stands for.
• The guess fills in every place that cipher letter appears, not just the one you tapped.
• A letter you have already used somewhere is dimmed, because no two cipher letters share a plaintext letter.
• Tap ⌫ Clear letter to take back the guess on the selected letter.
• 💡 Hint fills one letter in correctly and adds 10 seconds to your time.
• Crack all three and the clock stops. Nothing is marked wrong along the way.

How to crack one without guessing

Start by counting. In ordinary English the most common letters run roughly E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, and in a sentence of forty letters the winner is usually E. Then look at the shape of the words. A one-letter word is A or I. A three-letter word appearing twice is very often the. An apostrophe followed by one letter is s or t; followed by two, it is usually re or ll.

Doubles are the next gift. A doubled letter inside a word is almost always LL, EE, SS, OO, TT, FF, RR or NN, and doubles at the end of a short word narrow to LL or SS. Once you have E and T, the word the hands you H, and H sitting in front of a vowel gives you a foothold in half the sentence.

The last trick is the one that makes proverbs easier than random text: you are looking at a phrase somebody has said to you before. Six or seven correct letters is usually enough for the sentence to finish itself. If you enjoy the deduction, Codeword is the same cipher applied to a whole crossword grid, and Word Fit is the version where the words are given and the placement is the puzzle.

More games

More from 🔤 Word games:

• Daily Word — Guess the secret 5-letter word in 6 tries. One puzzle a day — same word for everyone. Keep your streak alive!
• Word Search — Find 10 hidden words in a fresh themed grid — every direction, even backwards. Race the clock and beat your best time.
• Word Scramble — Sixty seconds of anagrams. Four letters to start — seven by the time you're good at it.
• Hangman — Six wrong guesses, one word at a time. Solve it and the next word gets a letter longer.
• Word Hunt — Drag through touching letters to find words in ninety seconds. A five-letter find is worth four threes.

Or browse all games.