4 Pics 1 Word Answers

Each level of 4 Pics 1 Word shows four photos that share one word: four pictures of a winding road, a scroll, a bent paperclip and a ribbon might all be curl. Under the pictures is a row of empty boxes, one per letter of the answer, and twelve letter tiles to choose from. Only some of those tiles are in the answer. The rest are decoys. Coins buy hints that reveal a letter, remove decoy tiles or solve the level outright, and the game adds a daily puzzle on top of thousands of regular levels.

You don't need to describe the pictures to solve a level. The twelve tiles and the number of boxes narrow the answer down a lot. Enter the letters, set Answer length to the number of boxes, and the solver lists every word of exactly that length that the tiles can spell. Because the game's answers are everyday words, the list is sorted with the most common words first. In practice, the answer is usually one of the first few words you see.

Short answers have the longest candidate lists, because twelve letters can make a lot of four-letter words. That is where the pictures do their job. Scan the top of the list and ask which word all four images have in common. Longer answers of six letters and up often leave only a handful of realistic options.

• Use revealed letters. If you've used a hint, put the revealed letter in Starts with (first box) or Ends with (last box). A letter in the middle can go in Contains.
• Remove decoys first. The game's remove-letters hint takes out tiles that aren't in the answer. Enter only the tiles that remain and the candidate list shrinks a lot.
• Think broadly about the pictures. The link can be a noun (ring), a verb (fly), an adjective (sharp) or a wordplay connection. Look for what the images do as well as what they are.
• Consider plurals and compounds. Some answers are plural or a compound word. If the obvious word is one box short, try adding an S.

Before you open the solver, try a quick routine:

1. Name each picture in one word. Write the four words down.
2. Look for the word that could describe all four. It is often more general or more figurative than any single picture.
3. Check it against the box count and the letters. If a letter is missing from the tiles, it isn't the answer.
4. If you're stuck, enter the letters and length here and read only the first line of results. It is often enough of a nudge without spoiling the level entirely.

To get faster at the game, practise with common words of the right size. The four-letter, five-letter and six-letter word lists cover the most frequent answer lengths.

Once you've solved a few dozen levels, you'll notice that answers fall into a handful of types. Spotting the type early saves a lot of guessing:

• One thing in four settings. The same object appears in different forms, such as a ring on a finger, a boxing ring, a phone ringing and a circle of people.
• An action. Every picture shows something happening: running, falling, flying or cutting.
• A quality. Four very different things share a property, like being sharp, cold, bright or empty.
• A category. The pictures are examples of a group, and the answer is the group's name.

If the obvious noun doesn't fit the box count, try the verb or adjective for the same idea, then check the candidate list for it.

For letter-wheel games where every word on the wheel counts, use the Wordscapes, Word Cookies or Words of Wonders helpers. For crosswords with a few letters filled in, the crossword solver is the right tool. For a plain set of scrambled letters, try the word unscrambler.