About

Decryptic Crossword

A fresh cryptic crossword every day. The grids are built and filled automatically from free, openly licensed word lists.

How the clues are written

The wordplay in these clues is generated with AI. Writing cryptic clues that are both fair and read as fluent English is hard to do mechanically, and there isn't yet a better way to produce them at the quality and pace a daily puzzle needs. Every clue is checked to make sure its wordplay genuinely leads to the answer.

Word lists & licences

The answers are filled from these freely licensed sources:

• ENABLE dictionary — public domain.
• Spread the Wordlist by Brooke Husic & Enrique Henestroza Anguiano (spreadthewordlist.com) — CC0 1.0.
• English headwords from Wiktionary, extracted via kaikki.org — CC BY-SA 3.0 / GFDL.
• List of Dirty, Naughty, Obscene, and Otherwise Bad Words by Shutterstock, Inc. (LDNOOBW), used unmodified as a blocklist — CC BY 4.0.