▶ How to Play

What Is Contexto? The Free Daily Semantic Word Game

Contexto is a free daily word guessing game where your goal is simple: find the hidden secret word. Unlike Wordle, which gives you feedback on letters, Contexto works entirely on meaning. Every word you type gets a rank — the closer your guess is in meaning to the secret word, the lower the number. Rank 1 means you found it.

The game uses an AI language model trained on billions of text examples. When you guess a word, the model calculates how semantically similar your word is to today’s target. Words that appear in similar contexts — even if they look completely different — rank closely together. That is what makes Contexto genuinely challenging and surprisingly addictive.

How to Play Contexto — Step by Step

Playing Contexto is straightforward, but mastering it takes a real feel for language and meaning. Here is exactly how the game works:

1. Type any word into the input box and press Enter or tap the arrow button.
2. Your word gets a rank. Rank 1 = the secret word itself. Lower numbers mean you are getting warmer.
3. The colour tells you how close you are. Green = very close (top 300), yellow = moderately close, red = far away.
4. Keep guessing. There is no penalty for wrong guesses — you have unlimited attempts.
5. Use Hints if you get stuck. The hint button reveals a word that ranks higher than your current best guess.
6. Give Up reveals the answer and shows you the closest words if you want to move on.

The Answers has today’s full solution with five graduated hints — you choose how much to reveal. You can also browse the complete answer archive to see every past word and replay old puzzles.

Understanding the Colour and Rank System

Many players focus on the rank number but overlook how the colour coding works. Here is a breakdown of what each rank range means in practice:

Rank	Colour	What it means	Points scored
#1	🟩 Green	You found the secret word	10 pts + speed bonus
#2 – #10	🟩 Green	Extremely close — same tight cluster	5 pts
#11 – #50	🟩 Green	Very warm — right neighbourhood	4 pts
#51 – #100	🟨 Yellow	Getting warm — related concept	3 pts
#101 – #500	🟨 Yellow	On the right track	2 pts
#501 – #1000	🟥 Red	Same broad category	1 pt
#1001+	🟥 Red	Far — different semantic space	0 pts

Your score also gets a Speed Bonus when you find the word. Guess it in 1 try and earn 50 bonus points. Find it in 2–3 tries and get 40 bonus points. The bonus drops as your guess count rises, so there is a real incentive to solve it efficiently even with unlimited attempts.

Proven Strategies to Find the Word Faster

After playing hundreds of games, experienced Contexto players have developed reliable approaches. These are not tricks — they are genuine ways to think about meaning more systematically.

1. Start With Broad, High-Frequency Words

Your opening guesses should cast a wide net. Words like time, place, world, life, person, thing, work, day appear in a huge variety of contexts. They will not rank #1, but they give you your first landmarks on the semantic map. Once you know roughly which direction to go, you can narrow down fast.

2. Follow the Semantic Cluster

When a guess lands in the green zone, stop pivoting and go deeper into that concept. If “river” ranks #45, try “stream”, “bank”, “current”, “flow”, “water”. You are building a picture of the cluster the secret word lives in. The AI’s ranking reflects real co-occurrence patterns in text, so synonyms, related nouns, and typical collocations will almost always rank close together.

3. Try Different Parts of Speech

If “ocean” ranks #30, try the adjective “oceanic” or the verb “dive”. Try “sailor”, “wave”, “coast”, “shore”. Sometimes a related word from a slightly different grammatical category sits much closer. The model does not distinguish parts of speech the way a dictionary does — it maps meaning across all word forms.

4. Think About Contexts, Not Definitions

The best way to guess is to imagine: In what situations would this word appear? A word like “candle” appears in contexts involving darkness, birthdays, churches, romance, wax, flame, and quiet evenings. Guessing across those contexts helps you triangulate quickly. This is fundamentally different from thinking about dictionary definitions.

5. Pivot When You Hit a Wall

If your last ten guesses have not moved your best rank at all, you are in the wrong neighbourhood. Try a completely different domain: if you have been guessing nature words, switch to emotions, or tools, or food. Sometimes the secret word sits in a surprisingly abstract cluster — words like “freedom”, “pattern”, or “balance” pull from completely unexpected directions.

Daily Mode vs Unlimited Mode

Contexto offers two ways to play. In Daily Mode, everyone in the world is solving the same puzzle on the same day — one new word every midnight. Your score, guesses, and streak are saved automatically, so you can come back any time during the day to finish.

Unlimited Mode lets you play as many extra games as you want, any time. Each session picks a new random word from the word pool. Your Unlimited games do not count toward your daily streak, but they are a great way to practise strategy without waiting for midnight.

You can also use the Create Game button to set a custom secret word and share the link with friends or family. It is a fun way to challenge someone or make a personalised puzzle.

How the AI Ranking Actually Works

The ranking system behind Contexto is built on word embeddings — a technique from natural language processing where every word in the language is represented as a point in a high-dimensional mathematical space. Words that appear in similar sentences and contexts end up close together in that space, regardless of how they are spelled.

This is why “puppy” and “dog” rank close to each other, while “puppy” and “keyboard” are far apart. The model has processed enormous amounts of text and learned that puppies and dogs appear in similar situations — being walked, fed, trained, loved. A keyboard almost never appears in those same contexts.

The practical implication for players is important: you are not looking for synonyms. You are looking for words that share the same world — the same activities, settings, emotions, and associations. Two words can be unrelated by definition but deeply connected by context. That is the core challenge of Contexto, and what makes it genuinely different from every other word game.

Contexto vs Wordle — Key Differences

Wordle and Contexto are both daily word games, but they test completely different skills. Here is a clear comparison:

Feature	Contexto	Wordle
Feedback type	Semantic meaning rank	Letter position
Number of guesses	Unlimited	6 maximum
Skill tested	Vocabulary depth and conceptual thinking	Spelling and letter logic
Word length	Any length	Always 5 letters
Difficulty	Varies — can be very hard	Consistent 5-letter challenge
Learning benefit	Builds semantic vocabulary	Builds pattern recognition

Many players who enjoy Wordle find Contexto a more intellectually demanding experience. There is no letter scaffolding to lean on — your brain has to work through meaning and association alone. For more detail, read our full Contexto vs Wordle comparison.

Why Contexto Is Genuinely Good for Your Brain

Playing Contexto daily does more than pass the time. Because the game forces you to think about semantic relationships — how words connect through shared meaning and shared contexts — it actively exercises the parts of your brain responsible for language, memory, and conceptual reasoning.

When you play regularly, you naturally start to notice how words cluster in real life. You become more aware of connotations, collocations, and the subtle differences between near-synonyms. Players often report that their vocabulary feels more alive after a few weeks of daily play — not because they have memorised more words, but because they have sharpened the connections between the words they already know.

Research in cognitive linguistics consistently shows that working memory, vocabulary depth, and semantic flexibility are all trainable. Contexto is one of the few games that genuinely targets all three at once — and it takes less than ten minutes a day.

Archive and Past Answers

If you missed a day or want to revisit an old puzzle, the Contexto Answer Archive has every past game organised by date. You can filter by difficulty, search by word, or simply browse month by month. Each entry links to a full answer with graduated hints, close neighbours, and a play-again button.

The Answers hub is updated every day with today’s solution. It shows the answer in five progressive hints so you can choose exactly how much to reveal before giving up. If you are looking specifically for hints without the full answer, the Hints gives you three directional clues only.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Contexto free to play?

Yes, completely. There is no subscription, no account required, and no download. The game runs entirely in your browser on any device.

How many guesses can I make?

Unlimited. You can guess as many words as you need. Your score is based on how many guesses you used and how quickly you found the answer, so there is still a reason to be efficient — but you will never run out of attempts.

When does a new word come out?

A new daily puzzle goes live every midnight local time. If you are mid-game when midnight hits, your current progress is saved and you can finish before starting the new one.

How is the secret word chosen?

Words are selected to be common, recognisable English nouns, verbs, or adjectives. Obscure technical terms, proper nouns, and very rare words are avoided. The goal is to be fair while still being genuinely challenging.

Can I play old Contexto puzzles?

Yes. Use the Play Archive button in the game, or visit the Archive to browse and replay every past puzzle.

Does Contexto work on mobile?

Yes. The game is fully responsive and works on phones, tablets, and desktops. No app download needed — just open the site in your browser.

What languages is Contexto available in?

This version at contexto.uk runs in English. The word rankings are based on an English-language corpus, so English guesses will always give you the most accurate feedback.