FAQ

What is this site?
How do I use the search?
What are the clue pages?
What are the word pages?
Why didn't you have the answer for the clue I entered?
I hate ads. How can I turn them off?

What is this site?

Crossword Nexus is a collection of crossword resources of various types. There's a crossword dictionary to help solvers stuck on clues and to help constructors looking for entries that fit a given pattern. There's a Wikipedia search more powerful than the one given by Wikipedia itself that also ranks search results by importance of the page. There are crossword-related videos and a crossword forum, and hopefully lots more tools to come!

How do I use the search?

Using the search is easy! Just enter the clue you are looking to find help with in the "Clue" field and the pattern of the word you have in the "Pattern" field. Use question marks for letters you don't know. For instance, if your clue was [Convent dweller] and you had _U_, you'd enter "Convent dweller" (no quotes) in the "Clue" field and "?U?" (no quotes) in the "Pattern" field. If you want, you can also search for a clue without a pattern or a pattern without a clue!

What are the clue pages?

The "clue" pages are our best guesses at the answers to certain crossword clues. They are automatically generated every day when enough people search for a given clue. This (a) allows us to speed up the site by caching the most popular searches and (b) makes useful pages more accessible to other users who might be searching for the day's popular clues.

What are the word pages?

The "word" pages are generated from the invaluable Wikipedia and Wiktionary resources. They contain quick information about crossword entries which you might not otherwise have known.

Why didn't you have the answer for the clue I entered?

Our database is large, but not all-encompassing. We try to find a best fit for your clue based on clues and word definitions in our database. If a clue is unlike anything we've seen before, we won't have a match for it!
(Also, check your spelling. Did you spell the clue wrong?)

I hate ads. How can I turn them off?

Sorry about that. We try to keep ads to a minimum on this site but they are necessary to keep us afloat.
If you do want to stop seeing ads, you can turn them off on this and all other sites by downloading the amazing AdBlock for Chrome or AdBlock Plus for Firefox. They're free!
Also, if you don't like ads following you around the web, you can turn off remarketing by visiting http://www.networkadvertising.org/.