October 19, 2026 · by farrudeveloper

Arrow word tips: how to solve them faster

How to cut your time on an arrow word puzzle: the order to fill the grid in, reading the grammar of a clue, the stock of short answers, and what to do when a corner jams.

Finishing an arrow word puzzle takes patience. Finishing it quickly takes method. The difference between someone who needs twenty minutes for an easy grid and someone who needs six is not vocabulary: it is the order they fill it in and how little they stop to think on each square.

If the arrows still trip you up, start with what arrow words are and how to solve them. This is the next step.

1. First pass: only what you are sure of

Go over the whole grid once, top to bottom, and write in only what you know without hesitating. No "might be". In our grids six answers out of ten have three or four letters, and plenty of them answer themselves: "OUR STAR", "PUB BEER", "OLIVE ___".

That first pass usually fills a third to a half of the grid. And what matters is not the words you place but the letters they give away: three white squares out of four belong to two words, so every short word leaves clues in two or three others.

2. Second pass: from letters to words

Now stop reading clues at random. Look for words that already have letters in them and start with the ones that have most. A clue that means nothing cold ("ORGANISE", seven squares) more or less solves itself once you have the two Rs in place: ARRANGE.

A detail that speeds things up a lot: look at the ending first. In English the last few letters rule out far more than the first few: an S points to a plural or a third-person verb, ED to the past, ING to a present participle, LY to an adverb.

3. Read the grammar of the clue

Clue and answer always agree. It is the most useful rule in arrow words and the one people waste most often:

• Number. "COMMERCIALS" is plural, so the answer is plural: ADS.
• Tense. "HAD A MEAL" is in the past, and so is the answer: ATE. "CAME FIRST" is WON, not WIN.
• Part of speech. "SOFT, GENTLE" wants an adjective (TENDER); "OPPOSE" wants a verb (RESIST).
• Examples. "ROBIN, FOR ONE" means the answer is the category: BIRD.

Before hunting for the word, ask yourself what kind of word it is. That is half the job done.

4. Learn the stock of short answers

Arrow words recycle vocabulary, above all at three letters, because there are only so many three-letter words and the grid needs lots of them. These are among the most common in our grids:

• USE ("EMPLOY": nine times in the first thirty grids), ATE, ERA ("EPOCH"), ADS
• SEA ("OCEAN"), SKI, ONE ("SINGLE UNIT")
• TEA ("FIVE O'CLOCK DRINK"), OIL ("OLIVE ___"), ALE ("PUB BEER"), ERR ("MAKE A MISTAKE")

There is no need to learn them by heart: by your third grid you will recognise them on sight. But it is worth knowing they exist, because they are the ones that open up the difficult corners.

5. When a corner jams, come in from the other side

In a standard crossword you can be stuck on one word. In arrow words, because almost everything is crossed, you get stuck in an area: three or four words that all need each other. The way out is rarely to think harder about them; it is to come in through a word that crosses the area from outside and does not depend on the others.

If that does not work either, leave it and carry on elsewhere. Coming back to a corner with two more letters is far quicker than staring at it.

6. Two-part clues need both halves

Clues with a comma ("SOFT, GENTLE", "DESERT, LEAVE BEHIND") give you two hints for the same word, and the answer has to fit both. If the word you have in mind fits the first half but not the second, it is the wrong word. The same goes for clues with a double meaning: "STAG OR DOE" is one animal (DEER), not a choice between two.

7. Paper and screen are different games

• On paper, pencil in anything you are not sure of and use a pen only for what you have proved. One mistake in minute two can drag half the grid down with it.
• On screen, the check button is a tool, not a formality: use it when you doubt a whole area, because it locks the right letters so you cannot overwrite them by accident.
• Against the clock, do not fix things that "look odd" as you go. Finish, then go back over the words you do not recognise.

Practise against the clock

In our printable arrow words you can play all sixty grids in your browser with the timer running, or print them and write your time in the box at the top of the sheet. A good way to track progress is to stick to the same level for a week and note your times.

And if you like a race, the app has a new arrow word puzzle every day in three levels, and your time goes on that day's leaderboard. For general crossword technique, see our crossword tricks as well.