Summary: A Word Fill — also called a fill-in, criss-cross or word fit puzzle — is a crossword with no clues. You get the empty grid and the complete list of words, grouped by length, and your job is to fit every word into the grid so that all the across and down entries interlock. This guide covers the rules, where to start, and a worked example from the starter word.
Overview
Take a finished crossword, throw away the clues, and print the answers instead — every word in the grid, sorted into columns by length, with one word already written in to get you going. That is a Word Fill, the puzzle magazines also call a fill-in, a criss-cross or a word fit. Nothing to know, nothing to look up: every word you need is on the page, and the only question is where each one goes. Like a newspaper crossword, the black squares usually mirror themselves across the grid, so a slot in one corner has a twin in the opposite one.
The same puzzle twice: as it prints, with one starter word already in place, and solved. The list beside the grid holds every word in the grid, grouped by length.
The puzzle is pure placement. Word length tells you which slots a word can even go in, and the letters where entries cross tell you which of those slots it does go in. A Word Fill opens from the starter word: the crossings it fixes usually hand you a forced placement or two, and each of those fixes more crossings.
The Goal
Write every word from the list into the grid, one word per slot, so that every across entry and every down entry reads as a word from the list and the letters agree wherever two entries cross. When the last word is placed, the grid is full and the list is used up.
Word Fill Puzzle Rules
- Every listed word is used exactly once. The list is the complete set of entries — no extras, nothing missing, no repeats. Cross a word off as you place it: it is now out of play everywhere else, and the list becomes your progress bar.
- A word only fits a slot of its own length. The list is grouped by length for exactly this reason: a five-letter word can only go in a five-cell slot. Count the cells, then look only in that group.
- Crossings must agree. Every white cell belongs to an across entry and a down entry, and the two share that letter. A placement that would put two different letters in one cell is wrong.
- The starter word is a gift. Usually one whole word is printed in the grid before you begin; some books give two or three, and a few give none. It still appears in the list — cross it off yourself before you start — and every entry crossing it now has a known letter.
How to Solve a Word Fill, Step by Step
The steps below are worked on the puzzle above. Its starter word, RAGER, is the tinted column that starts in the top row, one cell in from the left.
- Read the crossings off the starter word. Every entry that crosses the starter now has one letter fixed. RAGER gives an R to the top row, an A to the second row, a G to the third, an E to the fourth and an R to the fifth. Rows one to four each have a three-cell across entry with that letter in the middle; row five has a five-cell one with R second.
- Look for a slot with only one candidate. Take the three-cell entry in the top row: its middle letter is R, so scan the three-letter group for a word with R second. Only ARC qualifies, so write it in. Two rows down, the three-cell entry has G in the middle, and only EGO fits. Two words placed, no guessing.
- Follow each new letter into its crossing. ARC ends in a C that starts a six-cell down entry, and EGO puts an O in that entry’s third cell. The six-letter group offers CLIMBS and CROWED for a word starting with C, but only CROWED has O third — so CROWED it is. Its six letters sit in six across entries — ARC and EGO you already have, so MAR, NEW, DYE and the five-cell entry on row five each gain a letter.
- Let a long word settle a short one. The A that starts ARC also starts a five-cell down entry on the left edge. AMEND is the only five-letter word in the list beginning with A, so it goes in, and its final D lands at the start of the five-cell across entry on row five. That entry now reads D, R, E, ?, ? — and of the two five-letter words with R second, DREAM and TRUST, only DREAM starts with D.
- Let the length groups pick the slot. Pick the length group with the fewest words left and match them to the slots of that length. This board has two nine-letter words, ARMAMENTS and TWITTERED, and two nine-cell slots — one running down the fifth column from the top row, the other down the ninth column from row five. DREAM’s final M sits in the fifth cell of the column-five slot; ARMAMENTS has M fifth and TWITTERED has T, so ARMAMENTS goes there and TWITTERED takes the other. Two words placed by length plus one crossing letter, and between them they hand a letter to seventeen entries you have not placed yet. Had that M not been there — two candidates, two slots, nothing to separate them — pencil one in; the first crossing letter either confirms it or tells you to swap.
- Finish from the list, not the grid. Late in the solve, read the list: the words still unticked are the words still unplaced, and by now each one has only a slot or two left of its length. Match them and the grid closes.
Number Fill: the Same Puzzle with Digits
Word Fill has a sibling that plays by the identical rules with digits instead of letters: Number Fill. There the list is numbers grouped by digit count, a few single digits are printed as starters, and there is no dictionary to know — you place purely by length and crossing digits. See How Number Fill Puzzles Work.
Try It Online
Play Word Fill in your browser. Click a square and type, or drag a word from the list straight onto a slot of the right length — the letters drop in, and a word that would clash with a printed starter letter simply refuses the slot. Press Check to test the whole grid when you think you are done. The general player controls — checking, resetting, the timer, working through a set — are covered once in How to Play Puzzles Online.
Outcome
You now know what a Word Fill asks of you — place every listed word so the grid interlocks — and how it opens: read the crossings off the starter word, find the slot with one candidate, follow each new letter into the entry it crosses, and close the last few words from the list. Want to make your own? See How to Create Word Fill Puzzles in Puzzle Maker Pro, or try the free demo first.
FAQ
Do I need to know the words?
No. Every word is printed in the list, so you never have to think of a word — only where it goes. An unfamiliar word is placed the same way as a familiar one, by length and crossing letters.
What is the difference between a Word Fill and a crossword?
A crossword gives you clues and asks you to know the answers. A Word Fill gives you the answers and asks you to fit them. The grid looks the same; the skill is placement, not recall.
Is a fill-in the same as a criss-cross?
Yes. Fill-in, criss-cross, word fit and the Dutch legpuzzel are all names for the same puzzle: a clueless grid plus the complete word list.
Where do I start if the starter word does not help?
Go to the longest words in the list. There are usually only a few long slots, so a long word has one or two possible homes, and placing it fixes crossing letters for many shorter entries.
Can a Word Fill have more than one solution?
It is built from one finished grid, so there is always a way to place every word. Occasionally two words of the same length could swap slots if every crossing letter agreed — rare in practice. When a slot has two candidates, leave it and place forced words elsewhere first; the extra crossings almost always settle it, and if a swap ever bites, one crossing letter will show it.