About Cryptogram
A cryptogram is a saying written in a secret alphabet. Every letter has been swapped for another one, the same swap all the way through, so the shape of the sentence survives: its word lengths, its apostrophes, its doubled letters. That is enough to crack it. A coded word of one letter is almost always A or I, and a three-letter word that keeps coming back may well be THE. Each guess fills every square with the same code letter, and the saying slowly appears. Every day brings a new traditional proverb, short on easy days and long on hard days.
How to play Cryptogram
- The saying is written in a code: every letter stands for another letter, the same one all the way through, and no letter stands for itself. Spaces, apostrophes and punctuation are not coded.
- Select a square and type a letter, or tap one on the A to Z keyboard: it fills every square with the same code letter. Erase clears the selected letter and Undo takes back the last change.
- A few letters are given at the start: four on easy days, two on medium days and one or none on hard days. Easy days have the shortest sayings and hard days the longest.
- When every square is filled, the saying is checked. Check marks wrong letters and Hint shows one letter; both are counted. Fastest time wins; fewer checks and hints break ties.
Tips & strategy
- Start with the short words. One-letter words are A or I, and the commonest three-letter word is THE, often at the start of the saying.
- Look at the apostrophes: a single letter after one is usually S or T, as in IT’S or DON’T.
- Switch on the letter counts. The code letters that turn up most often usually stand for E, T, A, O or N.
- Doubled code letters are doubled plain letters, and LL, EE, SS and OO are the usual suspects.
Cryptogram: questions and answers
Can a letter stand for itself?
No. In the daily code every letter stands for a different letter, so a code letter is never its own answer, and the page tells you if you try.
Where do the sayings come from?
They are traditional English proverbs and sayings, with some old weather and country rhymes. No quotations from named writers are used.
How is Cryptogram ranked?
By time, fastest first; fewer checks and hints break ties. Only a member’s first solve of the day counts for the leaderboard.