Word Links
A daily word puzzle: sort sixteen words into four groups of four that share a hidden link. Four mistakes allowed.
Word Links
Pick four words that share something, then submit. Find all four groups before you make four mistakes. Some words fit more than one group.
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Word Links at a glance
Guide updated
Word Links is a daily word puzzle. Sixteen words hide four groups of four that share a connection, and you sort them into their groups before you make four mistakes. A new puzzle arrives every day, the same for everyone.
- Type
- Word association puzzle
- Players
- 1
- How long
- 3–10 minutes
- Skills
- Vocabulary, lateral thinking
- Daily puzzle
- Yes, the same for everyone each day
- Controls
- Keyboard, mouse or touch
- Works on
- Phones, tablets and computers in a web browser
- Price
- Free, no download or account
How to play Word Links
The board shows sixteen words. They split into four groups of four, and each group shares a link: a category such as kinds of cheese, a word that can follow each one, or something trickier. Pick four words you think belong together and press Submit.
A correct group is removed from the board and shown with its link. A wrong guess costs one of your four mistakes. If three of your four words belong to the same group, the game tells you that you are one away. Run out of mistakes and the remaining groups are revealed.
Groups are colour coded by difficulty. Yellow is the most direct, then green and blue, and purple is the trickiest, often wordplay such as hidden words or words that sound like letters. Some words seem to fit more than one group, and that is part of the puzzle.
Daily puzzle and practice
Everyone gets the same puzzle on the same date, and a new one arrives at midnight. Your first finished attempt is saved on this device and can be shared as a grid of coloured squares that shows the order of your guesses without giving away the words. Practice plays a random puzzle from the archive and never repeats today's.
Word Links scoring
- Yellow group: 100 points.
- Green group: 150 points.
- Blue group: 200 points.
- Purple group: 250 points.
Solving the whole board adds a 200-point bonus, minus 50 for each mistake. A perfect solve with no mistakes scores 900.
Word Links strategy and tips
- Read all sixteen words before you guess. The first link you notice is often a trap with five or six candidates.
- Look for the group with the fewest possible members first; it fixes the others.
- Think about wordplay: a word that can go before or after the others, hidden numbers or animals, homophones and palindromes.
- Use Shuffle when you are stuck. Seeing the words in a new order breaks false patterns.
- Treat a one-away message as information: swap a single word, not all four.
Common Word Links mistakes
- Submitting the first group you spot. The obvious category often has five or six candidates, and one of them belongs somewhere else.
- Ignoring wordplay. Purple groups are often about the words themselves: hidden words, sounds, or a word that can follow each one.
- Changing all four words after “one away”. Three of them are right, so swap one word at a time.
- Forgetting Shuffle. A new arrangement breaks the false patterns your eye built from the old one.
About Word Links
Word Links belongs to a long tradition of grouping and connection puzzles from newspapers and quiz shows. Each puzzle is written for Tap Rush Arcade, with four groups ordered from the most direct, in yellow, to the trickiest, in purple.
The daily puzzle follows the same calendar for everyone and changes at midnight in your time zone. Results share as coloured squares that show the order of your guesses without giving away the answers.
Word Links: questions and answers
How many mistakes can I make?
Four. The dots under the board show how many you have left.
Does the order I solve the groups in matter?
Not for the score per group, but solving the harder groups first is a good way to show off on the shared grid.
Is it the same puzzle for everyone?
Yes. The daily puzzle is the same for every player on the same date and changes at midnight in your time zone.
Can I play older puzzles?
Choose Practice to play a random puzzle from the archive.
Is there a new Word Links puzzle every day?
Yes. A new puzzle starts at midnight in your time zone, and every player gets the same one that day.
What do the colours mean?
They show difficulty: yellow is the most direct group, then green and blue, and purple is the trickiest.