Word groups strategy: a calm method for tricky boards

The practice board

Give it a go before reading on. Every word belongs to exactly one group, and only one arrangement works.

Step 1: name what you see

Read all sixteen words and jot down the themes that jump out. Don’t commit to anything yet.

• Pottery: KILN, CLAY, SLAB, COIL.
• Weaving and textiles: WARP, WEFT, HEDDLE, BOBBIN, and then KNITS, LACED and SNIPS look like they belong too.
• Type design: SERIF, KERNING, GLYPH, ITALIC, and SLAB, since a slab serif is a style of type.
• Left over: DEVIL fits none of these.

Step 2: count the candidates

A group holds exactly four words. Seven textile words means at least three of them belong somewhere else, and that is where the purple group is hiding.

Step 3: chase the odd one out

A word that fits nothing, like DEVIL, is the best clue on the board. Ask what else could link it: a hidden word, a sound, a word it joins, or the word read backwards. Backwards, DEVIL reads LIVED.

Now test that idea on the suspicious extras. KNITS reads STINK, LACED reads DECAL and SNIPS reads SPINS. SERIF reads FIRES too. That makes five candidates for a group of four.

Step 4: let the tightest group decide

Pottery has exactly four candidates, so it needs all of them, SLAB included. With SLAB gone, type design is left with exactly four: SERIF, KERNING, GLYPH and ITALIC. SERIF is needed there, so the backwards group must be KNITS, LACED, SNIPS and DEVIL.

That leaves WARP, WEFT, HEDDLE and BOBBIN, which is the weaving group, now without its decoys.

When two groups compete for a word, look for a group that has exactly four candidates. It can’t give any away, so it settles the argument.

Step 5: send the safest group first

Submit the group whose words have no other possible home. Here that’s weaving: WARP, WEFT, HEDDLE and BOBBIN fit nothing else. Then pottery, then type design. The last group is solved for you once the other twelve words are gone.

Solving in the safest order protects your stars. Three stars need a clean board with no mistakes.

Step 6: use “one away” well

Say you had sent WARP, WEFT, BOBBIN and KNITS. The game says one away: three of the four belong together. Keep the three that only fit one theme and swap the one with another possible home. KNITS has the backwards reading, so it is the one to replace, with HEDDLE.

Change one word at a time after one away. Swapping two words throws away what the game just told you.

Traps to watch for

• Look-alike decoys: LACED and SNIPS feel like textile words but belong to the wordplay group.
• Words with two meanings: SLAB is a way of building a pot and also a style of serif.
• Wordplay hiding inside a category: SERIF is a real type term and also reads FIRES backwards.
• Fifth candidates: whenever five or more words fit a theme, at least one is a decoy.

Purple groups are usually wordplay. Common kinds: words read backwards, words that read the same both ways, a smaller word hidden inside, words that sound like something else, words that can all go before or after one word, and anagrams.

A checklist for any board

1. Read all sixteen words before tapping anything.
2. Write down every theme you notice, even the shaky ones.
3. Count the candidates for each theme.
4. Start with a theme that has exactly four candidates.
5. Test the leftover words for wordplay.
6. Submit the group with no shared words first.
7. After one away, change one word only.
8. Stuck? Tap Shuffle to see the words in new pairs.

• Practise on Daily Groups
• Continue the Journey