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Anagrams

The letters of a word, scrambled: T L I P U. Put them back — TULIP. Longer words as you climb, and the hint of what kind of thing it is fades away.

  • Words
  • Timed
  • 10 levels

How it plays

You see the letters of one word in a shuffled order. Type the word, or pick it from the options. Case does not matter.

Words start at four or five letters with a hint — what kind of thing it is and its first letter. As you climb the words get longer, the first letter goes, then the kind goes, and the time shortens. There is a top: the longest words with no hint is the last level.

Only words with a single answer are asked: no word whose letters spell another word the game knows (HEART and EARTH, LEMON and MELON are never asked), and a scramble is never itself a word.

Keys

Space starts and skips ahead · 1–9 pick · Enter submits · Esc stops. On a phone, tap.

What it trains

This practises rearranging letters and recognising words from their parts. It makes you better at anagrams; it claims nothing about memory or intelligence.

Learn

How to get better at anagrams: the method, the techniques, what each new level asks of you, and the traps the wrong answers are made of.

Your approach to each question

  1. Read the hint first, if there is one. “A bird, starting with P” leaves only a handful of words to try.
  2. Pull out letters that like to travel together: TH, CH, SH, CK, ST, QU, and endings such as -ER, -LE, -ET, -ING, -ION.
  3. Lay out the vowels and slot the consonants between them; most words alternate small consonant groups with vowels.
  4. Build the word, say it, then check every letter is used exactly once — a doubled letter counts twice.

Techniques and tricks

  • Vowels first, then fill

    Find the vowels and space them out, then try the consonants in the gaps around them.

    e.g. T L I P U — the vowels are U and I. Space them as ·U·I· and fill with T, L, P: TULIP.

  • Take the ending off

    Look for a common ending among the letters, set it aside, and unscramble what is left — a shorter, easier word.

    e.g. B A T L K E N — set aside -ET, leaving B A L K N: BLANK. So BLANKET.

  • Q wants U

    In English Q is almost always followed by U. If you see both, join them and treat QU as one piece.

    e.g. U Q T L I — QU + I L T: QUILT.

  • Use the kind

    When the hint names a kind, run through the members you know with the right length and first letter, and test each against the letters.

    e.g. “A tree”, letters E E C H B: five letters, two E’s — BEECH.

  • Break the shown order

    The scramble’s order is random, and it suggests false starts. Read the letters from the end, or in alphabetical order, so they stop pointing you the wrong way.

    e.g. BATLKEN starts like BAT…; read in order A B E K L N T and BLANKET is easier to see.

  • Spot the doubles

    Repeated letters are clues: they are often side by side (LL, EE, SS, TT) or one apart (I·I).

    e.g. I B T S U C I has two I’s: BIS + CUIT, BISCUIT.

As the levels climb

  • You start with four- and five-letter words and a hint giving the kind and the first letter.
  • Then five- to six-letter words; then the first letter goes from the hint and only the kind is left; then 80% of the time.
  • Then six- to seven-letter words; then no hint at all; 65% time; then seven- to eight-letter words; 55% time; and last, words of eight letters and more. That is the top. Once the hint goes, endings and letter pairs are your way in.
  • The time is about five seconds plus 1.6 a letter, cut as the pace tightens. Typing gets 30% more than choosing.

Traps to avoid

  • The near-miss option. When choosing, the wrong options are words of the same length sharing most of the letters, from the same kind first. Check every letter, doubled ones above all.
  • Chasing a false start. If the first few letters suggest a word (BAT… in BATLKEN) and nothing comes in a few seconds, drop it and start from another letter or an ending.
  • A letter left over or used twice. When typing, the answer must use every shown letter exactly once. Count the letters of your word against the scramble before you send it.
  • “A common word” is not a kind. That hint means an everyday word, not a member of a category — do not hunt among birds and tools for it.

How to practise

  • Under “Words”, pick “Kinds of thing” or “Everyday words” alone to work on one source; kinds give you a category to search, everyday words do not.
  • Under “Hint”, “Always say the kind” keeps the kind for every word; “Never” takes the hint away from the first level.
  • “Answer by” starts on “Typing the word”. “Choosing an option” is easier, as you only have to recognise the word; go back to typing as soon as you can.
  • Collect the endings and pairs that unlocked words for you, and look for them first on the next scramble.

Levels

Each question has a clock that comes from the work it asks for. There are 10 levels with the default settings, and the counter stops at the real top. Your level is judged on your last ten answers, every ten: 90% moves you up, below 80% moves you down, which holds most people near four in five right.

All of it is in the settings beside Start — how many answers a judgement looks at and how often it recalibrates, the thresholds, the time, which questions, how many options, and whether you see each verdict at once or review them together at the judgement. You can also jump to any level.

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