Groups

Groups is a daily word puzzle. Sixteen words sit in a four-by-four grid, and they belong to four hidden groups of four. Your job is to find all four groups before you run out of mistakes. Everyone gets the same puzzle on the same day, so you can compare results with friends without spoiling the answers.

How to play

• Tap four words you think belong together, then press Submit.
• If you are right, the four tiles join into a coloured bar that shows the group’s name.
• If three of your four words are right, you will see “One away…”. Swap one word and try again.
• You can make four mistakes. On the fourth, the remaining groups are revealed.
• Shuffle moves the open tiles around, which often helps you see new links. Deselect clears your picks.

The four colours

Every puzzle has one group of each difficulty. Yellow is the most direct, such as kinds of fish. Green and blue ask you to think a little harder. Purple is the trickiest and is usually wordplay: words that can all come before “ball”, words that hide a smaller word, or words that sound like something else.

World and India editions

The World edition uses groups any English speaker can solve, wherever you live. The India edition plays the same puzzle most days, so you can still compare with friends abroad, and every third day brings an India-flavoured puzzle with cities, cricket, food and festivals. The game picks one on your first visit; switch any time under How to play.

Tips

Expect red herrings. A puzzle might show five fruits when only four belong to the fruit group, because the fifth is needed somewhere else. When a word seems to fit two groups, leave it for later and solve the group you are sure of first. Saying the words out loud helps with sound-alike groups, and reading them slowly letter by letter helps you spot hidden words. If you are stuck, try to name the purple group: once the wordplay is found, the rest usually falls into place.

Daily puzzle, archive and sharing

A new puzzle arrives at midnight on your own clock. If you are partway through when the day changes, you finish that puzzle first and it counts for its own day. Your streak, win rate, perfect games and mistakes per game are saved in this browser. Missed a day? The Archive lets you play past puzzles for practice; they don’t change your streak, and there you can watch a short ad to reveal which group one word belongs to. Press Share after the daily to send a grid of coloured squares that shows how your game went without giving any words away.