🔍 Word Hunt
Click the first and last letter of a word to find it. 4 themes, 3 difficulties.
How to play
- Pick a theme (Animals, Space, Ocean, Sports) and a difficulty.
- Click the first letter of a word in the grid, then click its last letter.
- Words can run forward or backward, and diagonally on Medium and Hard.
- Find every word on the list to finish. Hint highlights one word's start letter.
- No penalty for a wrong guess, and your best time per theme and difficulty is saved.
A real word search, freshly generated every time
Word Hunt isn't a fixed set of pre-made puzzles, every grid is generated on the spot: each word from that round's theme is placed in a real direction on the board (checking for letter conflicts with words already placed, the same way a hand-made word search is built), and every remaining cell is filled with a random letter afterward. That means the same theme and difficulty plays differently every time you hit New Puzzle, since a fresh subset of words gets picked and placed in new positions and directions.
4 themed word lists give real variety: Animals, Space, Ocean, and Sports, each with a pool of real, correctly spelled words that a handful get randomly picked from each round rather than reusing the same fixed list every time. Easy keeps words horizontal or vertical only, a good starting point for younger players, while Medium and Hard add all 4 diagonal directions and bigger grids with more words to find.
Selecting a word is click-based, not drag-based: click its first letter, then click its last letter, and if the straight line between them spells the word (forward or backward) it's marked found. That works identically with a mouse, a touchscreen, or keyboard focus, the same reasoning behind every click-based game on this site. There's no timer pressure or wrong-guess penalty either, just a personal best tracked separately for every theme and difficulty combination.
Want more themes, bigger grids, and a print/download button? Try Word Search, this site's larger word search with 8 word banks and 6 difficulty tiers, or Word Search Maker to build a puzzle from your own word list. Free, no download, no account. See more spelling and vocabulary games on the Word Games page.
Frequently asked questions
How do you select a word in Word Hunt?
Click the first letter of the word, then click the last letter. If the straight line between them spells the word forward or backward, it's marked found.
What word categories are there?
Animals, Space, Ocean, and Sports, each with a real pool of words that a fresh subset is picked from every time, so the same category plays differently round to round.
Do words only go left to right?
On Easy, words only run horizontally or vertically. Medium and Hard add all 4 diagonal directions too, and any word can also be hidden backward in its direction.
Is there a penalty for a wrong selection?
No, an incorrect selection just clears with no penalty. There's a timer tracking your best completion time per category and difficulty, but nothing that can make you lose.
How is this different from this site's other Word Search game?
Word Hunt is the quicker, 4-theme version. Word Search is the bigger one, with 8 word banks, 6 difficulty tiers that scale grid size, and a print/download button for solving on paper.