Rules
How to play
You see a word’s life in books. You name the word.
The goal
The blue line shows how often one English word appeared in books each year from 1820 to 2019, as a share of all words printed that year. The line is scaled to the word’s own peak, so a rare word and a common word can both fill the chart. Your job is to name the word in six guesses or fewer.
What each guess tells you
Every guess must be a real English word. When you guess, three things happen:
- Its own curve is drawn on top, with its own colour and dash pattern, so you can compare shapes.
- You get a % match: how closely the two curves rise and fall together. 80% or more usually means the right era.
- An arrow compares the peak decades. ⬅ means the mystery word peaked in an earlier decade than your guess, ➡ a later one, and ✓ the same decade.
Letters in the right position also light up in the tiles under the chart. Only exact positions count: there are no yellow letters.
An example
Here the mystery word was railway. These were the guesses, in order:
| Guess | Peak | Match | Arrow | Tiles lit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| internet | 2001 | 23% | ⬅ the mystery word peaked earlier | · · · · · · · |
| castle | 1820 | 40% | ➡ the mystery word peaked later | · A · · · · · |
| candle | 1908 | 72% | ➡ the mystery word peaked later | · A · · · · · |
| steamboat | 1884 | 80% | ➡ the mystery word peaked later | · · · · · · · |
| locomotive | 1914 | 95% | ✓ same decade | · · · · · · · |
“internet” is from the wrong century, so it scores low and the arrow points back in time. “steamboat” and “locomotive” share the era of steam, and the arrow says the answer peaked in the same decade as “locomotive”. With a 7-letter word, an A in second place from “castle”, and a Victorian-era curve, “railway” is the next guess.
Hints
Three optional hints unlock in order: the first letter, the category (for example technology, medicine or war) and a one-line definition. Hints you use appear in your share card as 💡.
Sharing
When you finish, you can copy a spoiler-free result: one square per guess. 🟥 is under 50%, 🟨 is 50–79%, 🟩 is 80% or more and ✅ is the answer.
Words Ago #12 ⏳ 4/6 💡1 🟥🟨🟩✅ wordsago.com
New words, streaks and the archive
A new word starts at midnight where you are. Your stats and streak are saved in this browser only; there are no accounts. Past puzzles move to the archive once their day is over everywhere, with the full story of the word, and you can replay them there. Practice gives you unlimited extra words.
Playing with a keyboard or screen reader
Everything works from the keyboard: type a word and press Enter, and use Tab to reach the hints. Each curve has a written description (for example “rises from 1840, peaks in 1912”), each guess is read out with its score and arrow, and guess lines differ by dash pattern as well as colour.