Start with the longest word. There is usually only one slot it can go in, and it settles half the grid around it.
Word Fit — a free fill-in crossword with no clues
A crossword grid and the complete list of words that go in it. There are no clues — nothing to know, nothing to look up. The whole puzzle is working out which word belongs in which slot, using only the lengths and the letters where words cross.
Every grid is built in advance and proven to have exactly one possible arrangement, so there is always one right answer and you can never be marked wrong for a fair one. Your time is your score, and a half-finished grid is saved if you close the tab. Free, no download, no sign-up.
How to play
- Tap a slot in the grid. Tapping the same square again switches between the across slot and the down slot through it.
- Tap a word from the list to drop it into the selected slot. Only words of the right length that agree with the letters already crossing it will go in.
- Tap a filled slot then tap its word again to take it back out. Nothing is ever locked in.
- Fill every slot to finish the grid. Because the arrangement is unique, a full grid is a correct grid.
- Your score is your time, so faster is better, and your top 5 is kept on this device.
Why a crossword with no clues is harder than it sounds
The first instinct is that removing the clues removes the difficulty. It moves it. A normal crossword is a general-knowledge test with a grid attached; this is a pure constraint puzzle, and the information you are given is deliberately thin: how long each slot is, and which squares two slots share.
That makes the opening move matter more than in almost any other word game. Start with the longest word. If there is only one nine-letter slot and one nine-letter word, that placement is free, and it fixes a letter in every slot that crosses it — often five or six of them at once. Work down by length and you spend the early minutes making forced moves rather than guesses.
The second habit is to count the words of each length before you place anything. Four slots of five letters and four five-letter words is a hard group; one slot of seven letters and one seven-letter word is a gift. Fill-in solvers do this instinctively, and it is the reason a grid with a good spread of lengths solves quickly while a grid full of four-letter words is a grind.
The third is the one people miss: a crossing tells you about both words at once. When you place a word, do not just look at the slots it crosses — look at which words are still in the list. If the crossing square now demands a Q and no remaining word of that length has a Q in that position, the word you just placed is in the wrong slot, and you have learned that in one step rather than five.
Puzzles of this kind are sold in newspapers and puzzle books under a handful of names, usually "fill-in" or "criss-cross". The construction problem behind them is real work: it is easy to make a grid that looks fine and has two answers, because two words of the same length can quietly swap places if nothing crossing them tells the difference. Each grid here is checked for exactly that before it ships, which is why the puzzles are built ahead of time rather than in your browser.
More games
More from 🔤 Word games:
- Codeword — A crossword with no clues. Every letter is a number, three are given, the rest is deduction.
- Cryptogram — Every letter of a proverb has been swapped for another. Crack three against the clock.
- 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.
Or browse all games.