Stuck on a crossword clue? Enter the letters you know and use ? for any unknowns. We'll find matching ENABLE entries.

How the Crossword Solver Works

The Crossword Solver uses pattern matching to find ENABLE entries that fit your letter pattern. Enter the letters you know in their exact positions, and use ? to represent any unknown letter. For example:

c?t matches cat, cot, cut, etc.
?a??e matches dance, sauce, whale, etc.
h???o matches hello, hullo, and other 5-letter words with 'h' at the start and 'o' at the end.

Using Question Marks (Wildcards)

The ? symbol represents any single letter. Use it when:

You're unsure of a specific letter in the answer.
You want to explore alternative spellings or similar words.
You need to find words that fit a partially-filled grid.

Each ? counts as exactly one letter, so the total pattern length determines the word length you're looking for. A pattern of 5 characters will only show 5-letter words.

Pattern Matching Examples

Pattern	Matches	Example Use
`c?t`	3-letter words with 'c' and 't'	"Feline animal" (cat)
`s?ngy`	5-letter words starting with 's', ending with 'gy'	"Full of song" (songy)
`?????????`	All 10-letter words	When you know the length but none of the letters

Scoring and Word Rankings

Results are ranked by reference Scrabble tile value. The point values shown are face-value tile totals (no board multipliers); they do not establish whether a game accepts an entry.

About the ENABLE Dictionary

This tool uses the ENABLE (Enhanced North American Benchmark Lexicon) word list, a public-domain resource that contains over 170,000 entries. It is a useful source of candidates, but it is not a crossword answer database or an official accepted-word list for any game.

Tips for Solving Crosswords

Start with common patterns: Words ending in -ing, -tion, or -ed appear frequently in crosswords.
Use letter frequency: Common letters like E, A, R, S, T, N appear more often than Q, Z, X.
Check clue direction: Make sure your pattern matches both across and down clues if relevant.
Consider word length: The number of squares in the grid tells you the exact word length needed.
Look for less common words: Crosswords often test vocabulary. If common words don't fit, try synonyms or less familiar terms.

Other Word Tools

Looking for other word puzzle solvers? Try ourword unscrambler to find words from a set of letters, ouranagram solver for exact-match anagrams, or ourScrabble word finder for high-scoring plays.