The Field Guide · Squaredle
How to play Squaredle — the free, no-signup daily word hunt
What is Squaredle?
Squaredle is duplixo’s free daily word hunt: a 4×4 grid of letters where your job is to find every hidden word of four letters or more by tracing a path through touching squares — across, up, down or diagonally — using each square once per word. One grid, no sign-up, and a whole list of words waiting to be uncovered.
A free daily word hunt
Squaredle takes the simple, moreish idea of hunting words in a grid of letters and turns it into a daily puzzle. There is a new board every day, shared by everyone, so you can compare how many words you found with friends. When you have wrung the day’s grid dry, an unlimited practice mode generates fresh, solvable boards whenever you want more — each run through the same solver, so a complete answer key always exists.
Three things set the tone. First, it is free — there is no paywall and no premium upsell. Second, it asks for no account: your progress, streak and statistics live in your own browser, so you can start the moment the page loads without handing over an email address. Third, the interface is quiet — type-set tiles, a tidy word list you can copy as plain text, and zero emoji anywhere in the experience.
It is also built to be read by everyone. Live feedback never leans on colour alone: a traced word is confirmed with a shape and a label — a tick for a new word, a cross for one that will not stand, and a dot for a word you have already found. The whole board renders before any script runs, so it works on a slow connection, and every square is reachable by keyboard as well as by touch or mouse.
Most of all, Squaredle is a game about completeness rather than a single lucky guess. You are not chasing one hidden answer; you are trying to clear the board of every word it holds. A progress bar tracks how many of the day’s words you have found, valid words beyond that main list are logged as bonus finds, and if you get truly stuck, a built-in solver will reveal the full list — the same exhaustive key our answer page publishes each morning.
How Squaredle works
You play on a 4×4 grid of sixteen letters. A word is valid when it meets three conditions at once, so it is worth learning all three:
1. It is at least four letters. Two- and three-letter words are ignored; four is the floor. Long words are where the points and the bragging rights live, but a board is built from plenty of honest four- and five-letter finds too.
2. It is a real dictionary word. Squaredle checks each submission against its word list, so proper nouns, abbreviations and made-up strings will not stand — even if you can trace them on the grid.
3. It traces a path of adjacent letters. Starting from any square, each following letter must sit in a square that touches the previous one — left, right, up, down, or on any of the four diagonals. That is eight possible directions from every square. Crucially, you may use each square once per word: a path cannot cross back over a letter it has already used, though a different word is free to reuse that same square.
Here is a sample board. Read left to right, top to bottom, the sixteen letters spell out the grid you would trace on:
To enter a word you can drag across a chain of letters, tap them one at a time, or simply type the word into the box — if it can be traced on the grid, it counts. When a word lands, it is added to your list and grouped by length, and the bar climbs toward the total. There is no timer, so Squaredle rewards a patient, thorough sweep over raw speed.
Trace a word, then a longer one
Take the sample board above. Start in the top-left corner at P, step right to L, drop down to the A below it, move right to N, then right again to E. Every hop lands on a touching square, and no square is used twice — so the path spells PLANE:
Notice that the first four squares of that path — P, L, A, N — already spell a shorter word, PLAN, all on their own. That is the heart of the game: longer words thread through the same cells as shorter ones. Find PLAN and you are one adjacent square away from PLANE; find a word and it often pays to ask what else the same run of letters can build.
Now trace a word that shares letters but takes a different route. Begin at the S in the third row, step right to E, right again to D, cut up-and-left along the diagonal to that same A, then right to N — and you have SEDAN:
SEDAN leans on that diagonal step from D up to A — a move you cannot make in a game that only allows straight lines — and it reuses the very A and N that PLANE passed through, just reached from another direction. That is the “each square once per word” rule in action: within SEDAN no square repeats, but SEDAN and PLANE are perfectly entitled to share the same cells. Keep pulling on threads like this and the board slowly gives up its whole list.
Squaredle vs Boggle and other word hunts
Tracing words through a grid of touching letters is an old and much-loved idea — dice-based word hunts have been played around kitchen tables for decades. Squaredle sits happily in that family, but it makes a few deliberate choices that give it a different feel. The table below lays out how the daily puzzle compares with a classic timed word hunt.
The biggest difference is the goal. A traditional word hunt is usually a race: a timer runs, and you score points for as many words as you can jot down before it stops. Squaredle removes the clock entirely and asks a different question — can you find all of them? That shift, plus a shared daily grid and a four-letter minimum, turns a frantic scramble into a calmer, more complete-the-set puzzle.
| Feature | Squaredle | Classic word hunt |
|---|---|---|
| Board | Fixed 4×4 grid, shared daily | Random letters, shaken each round |
| How words connect | Adjacent squares, 8 directions | Adjacent squares, 8 directions |
| Minimum word length | Four letters | Usually three letters |
| Goal | Find every word (completeness) | Score points before time runs out |
| Timer | None — play at your pace | Yes, a hard countdown |
| Built-in solver | Yes, reveals the full list | No |
| Cost & sign-up | Free, no account | Varies by edition |
Boggle is a trademark of its respective owner. duplixo is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by it; the name is used here only descriptively, to explain the family of game Squaredle belongs to. Squaredle on duplixo is an independent puzzle with its own original code and word list.
Want to clear the whole board?
Squaredle, frequently asked
Is Squaredle free?
Yes. Squaredle is completely free to play. There is no paywall, no premium tier and no charge for the daily grid or for the unlimited practice boards. Open it in any modern browser and start tracing words straight away.
How do you play Squaredle?
You find hidden words on a 4×4 letter grid. Trace a path through adjacent squares — horizontally, vertically or diagonally — to spell a word of four letters or more, using each square at most once per word. The goal is completeness: uncover every word the grid can spell, not just one answer.
Do words have to be four letters or longer?
Yes. Only real dictionary words of four letters or more count. Two- and three-letter words are ignored, the path may move in any of the eight directions including diagonals, and no square can be reused within a single word.
Is Squaredle the same as Boggle?
They share the same family idea — trace words through touching letters on a grid — but they are not the same game. Squaredle is a fixed daily puzzle with no timer, a four-letter minimum and a goal of finding every word, whereas classic dice-based word hunts are usually timed and scored by points. duplixo is independent, with its own original code and word list.
Do I need an account to play Squaredle?
No account, sign-up or email is required. Your progress, streak and statistics are stored locally in your own browser, so you can start immediately and privately without handing over any personal details.
What are bonus words in Squaredle?
Bonus words are valid words you trace on the board that fall outside the day’s main list. They still count as finds and are tracked separately, so an eagle eye is rewarded even when a word is not one of the puzzle’s headline answers.
Know the rules? Hunt today’s board.
Finding a handful of words is easy; finding every word is where Squaredle gets its teeth. The players who clear the board are not faster typists — they are more systematic. They scan for common beginnings and endings, extend short words along the same path, and work the busy centre of the grid before the corners.
Our companion guide turns those habits into a repeatable method: how to spot prefixes and suffixes, thread the longest words, mop up the rare letters, and use the built-in solver to learn the patterns you keep missing. If you only read one more thing, read that. See the Squaredle strategy guide, or head straight to today’s board and put it into practice.