How to play Word Wheel
Word Wheel gives you nine letters set in a wheel: eight round the edge and one in the middle. Make as many words of four or more letters as you can, always using the centre letter. Find enough everyday words to reach Good, Very good and Excellent, and look for the one word that uses all nine letters.
Step by step
Look at the wheel
Nine letters sit in the wheel: eight round the edge and one in the centre. Every word you make must use the centre letter.
Tap letters to make a word
Tap the letters in order to spell a word of four or more letters, or type them on a keyboard. Each letter in the wheel can be used once in a word.
Press Enter
Your word is checked. If it is a real word that follows the rules, it joins your list of words, grouped by length.
Fix a slip
Tap the back arrow to take back the last letter, or Clear to start the word again. Wrong words cost nothing.
Shuffle for fresh ideas
Shuffle moves the outer letters round the wheel. Seeing them in a new order often brings new words to mind.
Aim for the targets
The bar shows how many everyday words you have found. Reach Good, then Very good, then Excellent.
Find the nine-letter word
One word uses every letter in the wheel. Finding it, or reaching Very good, solves the daily wheel.
The full rules
What you need
Word Wheel needs only nine letters. On GamesBento they sit in a wooden wheel and you tap them to spell. On paper, draw a circle split into eight sections round a small circle in the middle, write a letter in each, and list your words underneath.
The aim
Make as many words as you can from the letters in the wheel. Every word must use the centre letter, and each letter can only be used as many times as it appears. Somewhere in the wheel is one word that uses all nine letters.
How to play
- Tap a letter to add it to your word. The letter fades in the wheel to show it is in use.
- Tap the back arrow to take back the last letter, or Clear to start again.
- Press Enter to check your word.
- Shuffle moves the eight outer letters round the wheel. The centre letter always stays put.
You can also play with a keyboard. Type the letters, press Backspace to take one back, Enter to check, Space to shuffle and Escape to clear.
When a word is accepted it joins your list, grouped by length, so you can see at a glance which lengths you have explored. If a word isn’t accepted, a short message says why, perhaps it is too short or is missing the centre letter, and you can simply try again.
Targets and the nine-letter word
The bar above the wheel shows how many of the wheel’s everyday words you have found, with three marks along it: Good, Very good and Excellent. The number needed for each is shown under the bar, because some wheels hold more words than others.
Finding the nine-letter word is the high point of every wheel. It is always an everyday word, and the wheel is solved as soon as you find it, even if you have found nothing else.
Bonus words
Our word list is generous, so it accepts some words that few people use. These are shown with a dotted edge as bonus words. They are a nice extra, but the targets never depend on them.
Hints and showing every word
If you are stuck, press Hint. You will see the first two letters and the length of a word you haven’t found yet, starting with the shortest words. Press it again for one more letter.
When you have had enough, choose Show every word to see the whole list. Words you found are shown in full, and words you missed are greyed out. This finishes the wheel, so try a hint first.
The daily wheel
Every day there is a new wheel, the same for everyone. Reach Very good or find the nine-letter word to solve it. Your daily streak counts how many days in a row you have done this, and a solved daily wheel can be added to the weekly leaderboard. After that, choose New game and Practice for as many wheels as you like.
Tips for the word making game
- Start with the endings. If the wheel has an S, many words can be made plural. Look for -ED, -ER and -ING too.
- Build up from short words. A four-letter word is often the start of a five- or six-letter one: RAIN, BRAIN, BRAINS.
- Work through the vowels. Try the centre letter with each vowel in turn and see what words grow from the pair.
- Look for familiar pairs such as TH, CH, SH, ST and QU.
- Shuffle often. A new arrangement of the letters is the quickest way to see new words.
- Hunt the long word in pieces. Spot a likely beginning or ending, such as RE-, UN-, -MENT or -NESS, and see what the rest of the letters spell.
Common questions
Which words count?
Any word on our word list with four or more letters that uses the centre letter and only the letters in the wheel. Plurals, past tenses and other everyday forms all count. Names, abbreviations and hyphenated words do not.
What are bonus words?
Some real words are too unusual to expect anyone to know, such as ORRIS or VIREO. If you find one, it is accepted and shown with a dotted edge as a bonus word, but the targets are set only by the everyday words, so you never need a rare word to do well.
What do Good, Very good and Excellent mean?
They are targets based on how many everyday words the wheel holds. Good is about a third of them, Very good about three in five, and Excellent about five in six. The numbers are shown under the bar for each wheel.
How do hints work?
A hint shows the first two letters and the length of an everyday word you have not found yet. Ask again for one more letter. Hints are there to help, and using them doesn’t stop the wheel counting.
Is there a new wheel every day?
Yes. Everyone gets the same wheel on the same date. Reach Very good or find the nine-letter word to solve it and keep your daily streak going. After that, practice wheels are there whenever you want one.
Can I stop and come back later?
Yes. Your words are saved on this device as you go, and the game offers to continue where you left off.
Where it comes from
Letter wheel puzzles, sometimes called word targets, have been a familiar part of newspaper puzzle pages for many years, usually with a nine-letter word hidden among the letters and a set of targets to aim for. Making as many words as you can from one long word is an even older pencil-and-paper pastime, long enjoyed at the kitchen table and in the classroom.
