Games Night word search word list

50 words, hand-picked to fit a 15×15 grid. Free to use in any puzzle you make, including ones you sell. One thing to know if you build grids by hand: SHUFFLE sits inside RESHUFFLE — never put both in the same puzzle, or the shorter one is found twice. The generator keeps them apart automatically.

The button opens the free generator with this theme selected. It draws 15 words per puzzle and can make hundreds of different puzzles from this list without repeating a set — a 100-puzzle book comes to 124 pages at 6 × 9.

The list

• Backgammon
• Bidding
• Bishop
• Bluffing
• Board
• Bonus
• Cards
• Castle
• Charades
• Checkers
• Chess
• Counters
• Cribbage
• Dealer
• Dice
• Dominoes
• Draughts
• Expansion
• Gambit
• Hearts
• Jigsaw
• Joker
• Knight
• Mahjong
• Marbles
• Meeple
• Opponent
• Pawn
• Penalty
• Pieces
• Player
• Points
• Puzzle
• Referee
• Reshuffle
• Roll
• Rook
• Rules
• Scoring
• Scrabble
• Shuffle
• Solitaire
• Spinner
• Strategy
• Tiles
• Tokens
• Trivia
• Turns
• Victory
• Wager

Copy freely. One per line or comma-separated pastes straight into the generator's "Your own list" box if you want to add or remove words.

Crossword clues for every word

The same list with a plain-language clue for each word — written for the crossword type, and free to use in a grid you build yourself. Copy the lines as they are (word — clue) into the generator's own-list box and it makes the crossword for you.

• Backgammon — Race game with checkers and dice
• Bidding — Offering a price, in bridge or an auction
• Bishop — Chess piece that moves diagonally
• Bluffing — Pretending to hold a better hand
• Board — What the pieces move on
• Bonus — Extra points
• Cards — Deck for games, or greetings sent on the 14th
• Castle — Fortified home of a king; also a chess move
• Charades — Acting out a title without words
• Checkers — Draughts, in America
• Chess — Game of kings and queens
• Counters — Tokens moved around the board
• Cribbage — Card game scored on a pegboard
• Dealer — One who hands out the cards
• Dice — Cubes thrown in a game, or cut food into small ones
• Dominoes — Tiles with spots, laid end to end
• Draughts — Checkers, in Britain
• Expansion — Add-on set for a game
• Gambit — Opening sacrifice in chess
• Hearts — Card game where you avoid the queen of spades
• Jigsaw — Picture cut into interlocking pieces
• Joker — Wild card
• Knight — Chess piece that jumps in an L
• Mahjong — Chinese tile game
• Marbles — Glass balls flicked in a ring
• Meeple — Little wooden person in modern board games
• Opponent — The one you play against
• Pawn — Humblest chess piece
• Penalty — Points lost for breaking a rule
• Pieces — The parts you move
• Player — One taking part
• Points — The score
• Puzzle — Problem to be solved for fun
• Referee — Official with the whistle
• Reshuffle — Mix the cards again
• Roll — Throw of the dice
• Rook — Castle piece in chess
• Rules — How the game is played
• Scoring — Keeping count of points
• Scrabble — Word game on a lettered board
• Shuffle — Mix the deck
• Solitaire — Card game for one
• Spinner — Arrow spun instead of dice
• Strategy — Long-term plan to win
• Tiles — Flat pieces, as in dominoes
• Tokens — Markers standing for players
• Trivia — Quiz of general knowledge
• Turns — Each player's go, in order
• Victory — Winning
• Wager — Bet

A puzzle made from it

Medium difficulty: across, down and diagonals, nothing backwards. Every word appears exactly once — the generator checks the finished grid rather than assuming. Solutions are in the book, not on this page.