Cadgy

About Cadgy

Cadgy is a word game on OneLook, the dictionary site run by Datamuse. The name is a Scottish and northern English word for someone cheerful and in high spirits. A new grid arrives every day at midnight Pacific Time, edited by hand, and everyone plays the same one.

The grid has five columns of letters. A word is made by picking one tile from each column in order, so every answer has five letters. A typical day hides about ten Basic words, which are common words you would recognise on sight, and about ten Bonus words, which are rarer and come with a clue printed under the grid. On Fridays the counts double.

Each word is worth the same number of points, and finding them all gives 200. A clock runs, but you can take as long as you like; the game counts it a win if you reach 200 within three minutes or without entering a single invalid word. A tile turns gold once every word that uses it has been found, so the grid gets easier as you go and the last word is always given away.

After you finish, Cadgy shows how other players did that day: average scores, how many found every word, the median time, and the order in which people tended to find each word. There is an archive of past grids, a printable version and a Spanish edition.

How to play Cadgy

1. Open Cadgy and look at the five columns of letter tiles.
2. Make a five-letter word by tapping or typing one tile from each column, left to right.
3. Find the Basic words, common words with no clues, on your own.
4. Read the clues under the grid to find the rarer Bonus words.
5. Keep going until every word is found; tiles turn gold when all the words using them are done.

Screenshots

Tips

• When you find a word, look for others that share its start or its ending; grids often hide words with common prefixes and suffixes.
• Save the Bonus clue you are stuck on for the end, since gold tiles narrow the options and the last word is free.
• Avoid guessing at random: an invalid word costs you the no-mistakes win.
• Basic words are never names, so skip proper nouns when hunting.

Questions