Word Games

Words are important. Picking the right word can make the difference between a sentence that sparkles and one that... peters out limply. A dictionary and thesaurus help, but you can't look for a word that you don't know exists! Building up one's vocabulary can seem like a long task, but this is where word games can be a fun way to discover new words.

I personally like doing cryptic crosswords, but they take some training to understand the clues, never mind figuring out the actual answers. Below is a small selection of some slightly easier word games.



Drop Quotes is a nice game based around reconstructing quotations.

Patchwords looks easy, but as the words are so short it can be tricky to fit the lettered tiles together in such a way as to make all the words meaningful. You can also play it at BrainBashers.

Word Twist is essentially a variation of the classic Boggle game. Available as a 4x4 and 5x5 grid, the aim is to make as many words as possible using a string of adjacent letters. Also available at BrainBashers.

If you have any favourite word games, then let us know in a comment below.

One word of warning: ignore the alleged high scores in many of these games. It is very easy to construct a high score without learning anything... apart from how to do it! The main thing is to improve your own scores and to learn some new words.

Have fun!

And if you really want to know how to solve cryptic crosswords, then you could start here.