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Does today’s crossword have you puzzled? You could continue to fret, and fight the urge to check the full solution, or you could consult Wolfram|Alpha, which has the tools you need to solve the sneakiest constructions. Wolfram|Alpha can find words matching a pattern, words with specific beginnings and endings, and provide word definitions.
Whether you are a fan of the mind-bending New York Times Crossword Puzzle, or you enjoy a more leisurely crossword, the example we have provided can work for all crossword puzzles. We took a break with Wolfram|Alpha today to solve one of many free online crossword puzzles. You can play along.
In this puzzle, we are stumped by three words (5 down, 24 across, and 18 down), which are all dependent on one another. To solve, we will enter all the known letters into the computation bar, using an underscore (“_”) to represent the unknown letter(s). Wolfram|Alpha will return a word or list of words as a possible solution.
5 down: 6-letter word for calculating machine, “ABAC_ _”
If you are not confident about a suggested word, use Wolfram|Alpha as a dictionary to define the result and make your final selection.
Thanks to those final two letters, we’ve identified another letter for 24 across. Now let’s try to solve.
24 across: 4-letter word for aspersion
18 down: 5-letter word for anklebone
Solved! Sometimes just a few letters to a few unfamiliar words can tie up your game. So next time you’re feeling puzzled, consult Wolfram|Alpha to find the missing piece, and post the solution to your trickiest construction in the comment box below.
I like the possibilities of the “definition” dictionary. Another reason to keep multiple sessions of W|A open. With a slight modification to the below, I already sent this in through the Feedback field for the definition of ‘albeit’, but others might want to comment or add their own suggestions and vote on the general idea?
Yes, albeit it is a conjunction, but how about showing an actual definition? “Even though” or “although” will do nicely.
Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (m-w.com) has it and it has the ability to “say” the word for proper pronunciation.
That leads me to further suggest that W|A users could benefit greatly if it could “talk”. That could also help speakers of other languages to learn spoken and written English and vice versa. That might even lead to single sentence translations to and from other languages?
Great, but it’ll be better if the definition was already on the right of the words !
The dictionary will definitely help in a game of hardcore Scrabble.
In the examples above W|A distinguished the two definitions of ”talus’ by using a word or words to suggest the context in which they are used.
A positive distinction is needed. I suggest using an identification number so instead of
talus…noun bone you would have .. talus(1)
talus…noun formation you would have …talus(2)
Even better the number in brackets should be a selfchecking number to intercept most entry errors. This would start talus(19),talus(27). Now a single diigit error would be rejected as no such definition exists. The same for swapping two adjacent digits or two adjacent pairs of digits.
Hopefully Dictionary producers would do the basic work leaving W|A only to curate their work
W|A’s algorithms could then understand queries easier as it would not have to offer lists of alternatives when the user said which sense he wanted by appending the number.
I was able to crack a Cross Word puzzle using WolframAlpha. I’ve written a case study @ http://srikanthramu.com/2009/07/27/solving-crossword-puzzles-using-wolframalpha-a-case-study/
There are two things that could improve this even further:
1. Combine both features (dictionary, and looking up words based on partial letters) to provide a reverse dictionary.
That way it will be possible to, using your example, query for “tal_s meaning ankle bone” (or possibly some better syntax. “containing”? “defined with”?)
2. Allow to search for an unspecified letter count, instead of just with _ which replaces a single letter.
It would be a help if crossword puzzles were identified as pertinent to age group. Younger people have difficulty with puzzles that refer people, places and events that were current a century ago.
That’s pretty awesome! I love cross word puzzles I can do them for hours. This is a cool tool as well. It would give me a sense that I am cheating. The idea is to solve it using your brain and by using a tool really isn’t right.
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