How the word searches are made and checked

It starts with a word list for each occasion

There are 11 word lists on the site, one for each holiday or season, with 420 words in total. We wrote them ourselves instead of copying a list from somewhere else. The words are everyday English, between three and ten letters long, and chosen so that a child and a grandparent would both recognise them. Traditional holiday words such as angel, carol or church are included; brand names and film or cartoon characters are not.

A list is longer than any one puzzle needs. That is deliberate: each grid picks only some of the words, so the Christmas word search you print today and the one you print tomorrow share a theme but not the same set of words. Within a list no word is hidden inside another one, because a grid that contains snowman would otherwise also contain a second, accidental snow.

Puzzles are made in advance, not in your browser

Many word search sites build a new grid each time the page is opened, which means the puzzle you saw cannot be found again. We do it the other way round. All 10248 puzzles, in 28 banks across 14 pages, were generated before the site was published and are stored as small files next to each page. Your browser only draws the puzzle and remembers what you have found.

The result is that every puzzle has a permanent number. Puzzle 40 of the hard Halloween word search is the same grid for everyone, this year and next. A teacher can write the number on the board, a host can send one link to every guest, and the solution printed today still matches the sheet somebody finds in a drawer in a month.

Two programs: one makes, one checks

For a word search, the generator chooses words from the list, places them in the grid in the directions the level allows, lets some of them cross, and fills the remaining cells with letters. For a word scramble it shuffles the letters of each chosen word until the result is different from the word itself.

The generator is not trusted. A second program, written separately, receives the finished puzzle and reads it the way a solver would. For a word search it scans the whole grid from every cell in all eight directions and counts how often each listed word appears. A grid is published only if every word is found exactly once, in the place where it was put, so a word can never be found in two spots. The same scan looks for a short list of words we do not want to turn up by accident among the filler letters. For a scramble it confirms that the jumble uses exactly the letters of the answer and that no other word in the same list could be made from them.

The check runs again over every puzzle each time the site is rebuilt. If a single puzzle fails, the site is not published.

How the puzzle of the day is chosen

No server decides what today's puzzle is. The page takes the date on your device, counts the days since 1 January 2026 and opens the puzzle with that number. Each bank is finite, so the sequence comes round again; the table below gives the size of every bank, and a bank repeats after that many days. Because the date comes from your own clock, the puzzle changes at your local midnight.

You are never limited to today's puzzle. Previous, Next and the number box open any puzzle in the bank, which is how you print a different sheet for each child at a party or work through a holiday's whole set in the week before it.

What we do not claim

Easy and hard describe how a grid was built: its size, how many words it holds and which directions are used. They are not reading levels, and we have not timed anyone solving them. A word scramble is checked against our own list only, so now and then a jumble may also spell a real word we did not think of; the page accepts the listed word. The list of unwanted words is short and cannot cover everything. If you find a mistake of any kind, the contact page has our address, and a corrected bank replaces the old one at the next rebuild.

The check for each kind of puzzle

Christmas word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

Christmas word scramble

Each scrambled word is compared letter by letter with its answer, must differ from it, and the answer must be the only word in our own list that uses exactly those letters.

Winter word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

New Year word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

Valentine's Day word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

Thanksgiving word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

Thanksgiving word scramble

Each scrambled word is compared letter by letter with its answer, must differ from it, and the answer must be the only word in our own list that uses exactly those letters.

Fall word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

Halloween word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

Halloween word scramble

Each scrambled word is compared letter by letter with its answer, must differ from it, and the answer must be the only word in our own list that uses exactly those letters.

St. Patrick's Day word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

Easter word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

Spring word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

Summer word search

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.