Solving Wordwheel Puzzles

Wordwheel puzzles are a simple but fun word puzzle that tests your vocabulary skills to the max.

There are various variations on the standard wordwheel rules, but usually a wordwheel puzzle will require you to as a minimum find one word that uses all the letters in the wordwheel grid. Typically wordwheels contain nine letters and have just one word that can be made using all the letters, however occasionally they will be of different sizes and even have more than one nine letter anagram, such as algorithm and logarithm.

Often the puzzle will ask you to make as many words of three or more letters as you can from the wheel. The restriction is usually applied that all words must use the central letter in the grid, and furthermore plurals and proper nouns are usually banned.

When it comes to solving the puzzles you can either just look at the letters and follow various paths noting down words as you go.

For those who like a systematic approach the most effective way to keep track of words is to start with a given letter, then move round one letter and build up words letter by letter. Once you've exhausted all those words, move to the next letter and so on, all the time ensuring that you use the middle letter somewhere in your word.

Word wheels are both fun and a good way of building your vocabulary, particularly if you look up the obscure three or four letter words that you find and wonder if they exist or not!

If you want to see a list of all the words you can make from a given word then you can do so online, for instance see a list of all the words you can make from superman here. Of course you'll need to ignore words of less than three letters, plurals and those that don't use the central letter in the wordwheel.

In general you can find all the words you can make from another word with an Anagram Dictionary

If you enjoy solving wordwheels, then why not buy a book containing nothing but 100 wordwheels? You can buy via Amazon at the link below: Book of Wordwheels
Date written: 09 Feb 2011

Category: word puzzles | Keywords: wordwheels

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