A word-of-the-day email hands you the word. Spellwise makes you work for it first: six guesses at a word you may have heard but couldn’t define. Then, win or lose, the round ends on a word card.
That card is the reason the game exists. Our line is “One word wiser,” and the card is where that happens.
What’s on the card
Four things, in this order:
- How to say it, as a plain respelling with the stressed part in capitals.
- The part of speech: noun, verb, adjective or adverb.
- A plain-English definition, written to be understood on one read.
- One example sentence that uses the word the way people actually use it.
Here’s what a card looks like, using a word that suits a word game:
REBUS
REE-bus · noun
A puzzle that uses pictures, symbols or letters to stand for words or parts of words.
“The bakery’s sign was a rebus: a drawing of a bee, then the letters LIEVE.”
Why each part is there
A respelling instead of phonetic symbols. Many dictionaries show pronunciation with the International Phonetic Alphabet or their own set of symbols. Both are precise, and both take some practice to read. A respelling like REE-bus can be sounded out right away. If you know how to say a word, you can use it out loud without worrying that you’ll get it wrong.
The part of speech. It tells you how the word fits in a sentence. It’s also the one clue Spellwise offers if you’re stuck after three guesses, because knowing a word is a verb or an adjective narrows what it could look like.
A short definition. We write every definition ourselves in plain English, then check it against Merriam-Webster, Wiktionary and WordNet for accuracy. We don’t copy definitions from any of them. A definition you have to look up words to understand defeats the point.
One sentence. A definition tells you what a word means. A sentence shows you where it belongs. We keep it to one so the card stays short enough to read on a phone in a few seconds.
Which words make the cut
The week has a rhythm:
- Sunday to Thursday: five-letter words you’ve probably heard but might not be able to define.
- Six-letter Friday: one letter longer and a little harder.
- Stretch Saturday: a word that may be new to you.
- Holidays: a themed word, and the tiles flip into the holiday’s colors.
The weekday words sit in a deliberate middle. A word nobody has heard of is hard to guess, because you can only reason about letters. A word everybody knows teaches nothing. Words you half know are common enough to solve by working out the letters, and unfamiliar enough that the card tells you something new. Saturday stretches past that on purpose, and how to solve a word you’ve never seen covers how to handle it.
Your own dictionary
Every word you play goes into My Words, with its full card. Over time it becomes a list of every word you’ve met, newest first, with what each one means.
Some badges follow it: Ten Words Wiser, Fifty Words Wiser and Hundred Words Wiser for the size of the list, Walking Dictionary at 365 words, and Parts of Speech for collecting a noun, a verb, an adjective and an adverb.
Making it a habit
Spellwise is built around one word a day, at the same time for everyone in your time zone: a new word unlocks at midnight where you are. A few things you can try if you want the word to stay with you:
- Say it out loud once, using the respelling.
- Read the example sentence, then make up one of your own.
- Look back through My Words at the end of the week.
None of it takes more than a minute.
Spellwise is free. You can play as a guest, or sign in to keep your streak and My Words on every device. Play today’s word and see what’s on your card.