🔤CrissWord: The Daily Word Puzzle Where Two Answers Share the Same Letters

If you have a daily puzzle habit — Wordle before breakfast, Connections on the commute, the Mini crossword before bed — CrissWord is worth adding to the rotation.

CrissWord is a free daily word puzzle game, playable in your browser or on the app. Two clues, two answers, one catch: both answers share the same letters in the same positions. Find both words and you solve it. Miss the connection and you're guessing blindly.

It was created by Chris Ward and has been featured in The Guardian. New puzzles go live every day, and like Wordle, you can share your results.

The Core Idea

A standard crossword clue points you at one word. CrissWord gives you two clues at once, and the answers are linked — certain letters appear in both words at the same positions, shown in green.

The challenge is that you can't just solve one clue independently. You need to think about both answers simultaneously, because a word that fits one clue perfectly might not have the right letters in common with the other answer. That shared-letter constraint is what turns a pair of simple synonym clues into a genuine puzzle.

The clues can be straightforward synonyms or wordplay — and sometimes lean on general knowledge. Part of the charm is not always knowing which type you're dealing with until the answer clicks.

Working Through an Example

Here's a real puzzle:

DON'T TWIST (5) WOOD FESTIVAL (5)

Two five-letter words. Both share the same letters at the same positions (shown green on screen).

The answers are STICK and STOCK.

In Blackjack, "stick" means don't twist your hand. And Woodstock is the famous music festival. But notice how the connection works: STICK and STOCK share four of their five letters — S, T, _ , C, K — with only the middle letter different. You can't get to STICK from "DON'T TWIST" alone without also spotting that the middle letter of "WOOD FESTIVAL" can't be an I.

Here's another:

ROBBER (5) SORROW (5)

Clean synonyms — no general knowledge needed. The answers are THIEF and GRIEF. Both share the pattern _RIEF... wait, no — T/GRIEF. Both five letters: T-H-I-E-F and G-R-I-E-F. They share I, E, F in positions 3, 4, 5. Knowing that "SORROW" ends in a three-letter sequence that matches "ROBBER" is what unlocks both answers at once.

The Harder Varieties

Double Puzzles

Some puzzles have two solutions — two different pairs of words both satisfying the clues. You need to find all four words to complete the grid.

JOIN (5) PIXIE (5)

This one has two solutions:

• MARRY / FAIRY
• SPLICE / SPRITE

"Join" has two common synonyms in five letters — marry and splice. "Pixie" has two — fairy and sprite. And each pair lines up with matching green letters. The game tells you upfront when a puzzle has multiple solutions, so you know you're hunting for more than one pair.

Multi-Word Answers

Some answers are phrases rather than single words, shown with a split like (3,3):

DESTINED LIFE PARTNER (3,3) ROYAL SEATING (6)

The answers are THE ONE and THRONE. Separated on screen as T-H-E and O-N-E, but when you line up the letters — THEONE and THRONE — they share the same sequence. Fitting a two-word answer into a word-pattern grid is a different mental exercise entirely from single-word synonyms.

Wordplay Clues

Not every clue is a synonym. Some require lateral thinking:

DON'T TALK ABOUT THIS CLUB (5)

The answer is FIGHT — as in Fight Club, the film/book where the first rule is you don't talk about it. If you go in expecting a straight synonym, this kind of clue will catch you flat-footed. But the other answer in that puzzle is LIGHT (from "WEAK BUD" — Bud Light), so once you have one, the shared-letter pattern can steer you to the other.

Daily + Shareable

A fresh CrissWord puzzle goes live every day. The last five days' puzzles are also available if you want to catch up or need more practice. When you finish, you can share your result — the number of guesses, without spoilers — in the same way Wordle and Connections results spread across social media.

The app also sends daily notifications if you want a reminder.

CrissWord:GRID

The app includes a second game: CrissWord:GRID. This one looks more like a traditional crossword grid — all answers go across, but the letters in each column have to match. Think of it as a crossword with an extra constraint turning every row into a puzzle about every other row. Also daily, also free.

Why It Works as a Word Puzzle

What makes CrissWord satisfying is the same thing that makes a good cryptic clue satisfying: the moment when two unrelated-seeming clues suddenly resolve into a pair of words that fit together perfectly. Most word games test vocabulary or speed. CrissWord tests the ability to hold two ideas in your head at once and find the version of each that matches the other.

If you find a standard crossword a bit passive — reading a clue, writing an answer, moving on — the shared-letter constraint gives you something to push against. And because the puzzles are short (usually just one pair of clues, occasionally two), they're genuinely quick to play. Most take two to five minutes. Some days you get it immediately. Some days that five-letter word sits there stubbornly for longer than you'd like to admit.

Play Free

CrissWord is free, collects no data, and works in your browser without installing anything. Head to crissword.com to try today's puzzle. The app is on the App Store and Google Play if you want notifications and the CrissWord:GRID bonus game.