How to play
How to play
Find the secret word. You have unlimited guesses.
Type a word and submit it. Each guess is ranked by how semantically close it is to the secret word.
Rank 1 means you found the word! A rank of 50 means your word is very close. A rank of 1000+ means it's far away.
GreenBlue = very close YellowOrange = getting warm Gray = far away
You have 3 hints per game. Each hint reveals a word and its rank to help guide you.
Share the link to challenge a friend with the same word!
Each guess is compared to the secret word using FastText word embeddings trained on Wikipedia and news text. Rank 1 is the exact match; rank 2 is its nearest semantic neighbour; and so on.
Yes. The daily puzzle is the same worldwide and is determined by the current UTC date.
At midnight UTC. After you solve the daily game, a countdown to the next puzzle appears on the victory screen.
Easy reveals a word roughly halfway between your best guess and the target. Medium reveals one just slightly closer than your best. Hard picks a word at an unpredictable rank — riskier, but sometimes more useful for breaking out of a rut.
Only lowercase English words of at least 2 letters are accepted. Very rare words, proper nouns, and non-English terms may not be in the vocabulary.
Daily is a single shared puzzle that rotates every day. Practice gives you a new random word each time, with a shareable link. Challenge lets you pick any word yourself and send a friend a link to guess it.
Reduce eye strain in low light
Use a high-contrast palette (blue / orange / gray)
Report a bug or suggest a feature
How we handle your data
CloseWord v1.0 — A daily word game
Last updated: April 2, 2026
CloseWord is a free, browser-based word game. We are committed to keeping your experience private and transparent.
None, on purpose. We do not collect personal information, create user accounts, or track you across websites.
Your game progress (guesses, hints, dark mode preference) is saved in your browser's local storage so you can resume where you left off. This data never leaves your device.
We may use privacy-friendly, cookie-free analytics (e.g. page views) to understand aggregate traffic. No personally identifiable information is collected.
We do not use cookies for tracking. Only essential browser storage (localStorage) is used for game functionality.
We load Google Fonts for typography. Google may log standard web requests (IP, browser info) per their privacy policy. No other third-party services are used.
This game is suitable for all ages. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone, including children.
We may update this policy occasionally. The "last updated" date will reflect any changes.
Questions? Email us at feedback@closeword.org.