How to Solve a Word Pattern With Missing Letters (Crosswords and Puzzles)
Updated October 2026
A crossword gives you some of the letters and a length. A hangman game gives you a few letters in place. In both cases you know where the letters go but not what is missing. A pattern solver takes exactly that and lists the words that fit.
Write the pattern
- Type the letters you know in their places.
- Type a question mark for each unknown letter.
- Use an asterisk when you do not know how many letters are missing.
- Read the list, grouped by length.
Question mark versus asterisk
- A question mark is exactly one letter. The pattern c?t has three letters and matches cat, cot and cut.
- An asterisk is any number of letters, also none. The pattern *ing matches every word that ends in ing, whatever its length.
- You can combine them. The pattern ?a?e* needs an a in the second place and an e in the fourth, and then continues as long as it likes.
Narrow the list
Use Must also contain for letters you know are in the word but not where. Use Must not contain for letters you have ruled out. In a hangman game the wrongly guessed letters belong in the second field.
Pattern solver or unscrambler?
The two tools answer different questions. A pattern solver keeps your letters in the places you typed them. The word unscrambler treats your letters as a pool of tiles in any order, which suits a rack of tiles in a board game.
If you know the length and some positions, use the pattern solver. If you only know which letters you hold, use the unscrambler.
When the answer is not in the list
- Crossword answers are often names, abbreviations, phrases or very new words, which a word list may not contain.
- Check the pattern for a typo and for the right length.
- Try an asterisk instead of question marks if the answer could be longer than you think.
Privacy
The word list is downloaded to your browser once, and the search is done on your device. The pattern you type is not sent anywhere.