Fill-In Crossword

A Fill-In Crossword (also known as Word Fills or Cruzadex) features a grid and the full list of words to be entered into that grid, but does not give any clues for where each word goes. The challenge is figuring out how to integrate the list of words together within the grid so that all intersections of words are valid.

Fill-in crosswords may often have longer word length than regular crosswords to make the crossword easier to solve. Fitting together several long words is easier than fitting together several short words because there are fewer possibilities for how the long words intersect together. Unlike regular crossword puzzles, symmetry is often disregarded.

Below is a difficult sample puzzle for you to try. No words are given from the outset, but there are only two 10 letter words and only two places for them to go, so this should be your starting point.

Solving one of these puzzles often starts by finding the longest words and trying to fit them into the grid via trial and error, each time checking to make sure that the word going across in the opposite direction are still fillable. Then move down to the next largest word and continue the process. Often, the first word is given at the start of the puzzle, so this is a good place to start trying to fill-in words going the opposite direction.

For some hints to the sample puzzle above, use your cursor to select the text in one of the black boxes below.

1. Mama is the word in the top row on the left.
2. Hole is the word in the bottom row on the right.