The history of word search
Word search feels as if it has always been around, but it is one of the youngest puzzles in the newspaper. The first known word search in English was printed in 1968, and nobody ever owned the idea, which is why it spread so fast.
1968: an advert sheet in Norman, Oklahoma
The puzzle is usually credited to Norman E. Gibat, who ran a printing business in Norman, Oklahoma. He published a small free sheet of local adverts called the Selenby Digest, handed out in shops around the town. On 1 March 1968 it carried a grid of letters with the names of Oklahoma towns hidden inside. Readers could find the words running up, down, diagonally, forwards or backwards.
The puzzle turned out to be far more popular than the adverts around it. Local teachers asked for more to use in class, and Gibat kept making them, but the Digest itself never made money and he stopped publishing it around 1970.
Did someone get there first?
Gibat's is the earliest word search in English that can be dated, but probably not the first in the world. In Spain the puzzle is called sopa de letras, "letter soup", and it is credited to Pedro Ocón de Oro, a Madrid puzzle maker who invented well over a hundred kinds of pastime. Spanish sources place his letter soups in the 1960s, though nobody has pinned down an exact year. There are also claims of earlier home-made versions in the United States. The honest answer is that the idea seems to have occurred to several people at around the same time.
Why it spread so quickly
Gibat never patented the puzzle or registered a name for it. Anyone could print one, and newspapers, magazines and puzzle book publishers soon did. That is also why the puzzle has so many names.
One puzzle, many names
| Name | Where you will see it |
|---|---|
| Word search | The most common English name, in the UK and the US |
| Wordsearch | Common in British newspapers and puzzle books |
| Word find, word seek, word sleuth | Puzzle books and children's magazines |
| Mystery word puzzle | Versions where leftover letters spell a hidden message |
| Sopa de letras | Spanish, "letter soup" |
| Mots mêlés | French, "mixed-up words" |
| Caça-palavras | Portuguese, "word hunt" |
| Woordzoeker | Dutch, "word finder" |
Word search on television
In the mid 1970s the American network CBS ran a game show called Now You See It, in which contestants raced to find words in a giant grid of letters. It was, in effect, a televised word search.
From puzzle books to screens
For most of its life the word search lived on paper: in newspapers, in thick puzzle books sold at railway stations, and on classroom worksheets. Computers changed how puzzles are made more than how they are played. Making a good grid by hand is slow work: you have to fit the words in, fill the gaps, and then check that no word appears twice by accident. A computer can do all of that in a fraction of a second, which is why sites like this one can give you a brand new grid every time you press a button. You can read how our grids are made on the blog.
Why it has lasted
Word search asks very little of you to get started. You do not need a large vocabulary, there are no clues to decode, and there is no single right order to work in. Yet a big grid with backwards words still takes real concentration. That mix of easy to start and satisfying to finish is probably why, more than fifty years after a printer in Oklahoma filled a space between adverts, it is still one of the most played puzzles in the world.
Play a word search now, or read how to play.