Boggle rules and scoring
Shake 16 letter cubes into a 4×4 grid, turn the three-minute timer, and write down every word you can trace through touching cubes. Words need at least three letters. When time's up, cross out any word another player also found. Longer words score more: a three-letter word is worth 1 point, an eight-letter word 11.
How to play
- Shake the cubes in the covered tray until they settle into the grid, then take the lid off and start the three-minute timer.
- Everyone writes words at the same time, on their own paper.
- A word is built from letters that touch: across, up and down, or diagonally. Each letter after the first must be a neighbour of the one before it.
- You can't use the same cube twice in one word. You can use it again in a different word.
- Words must be at least three letters long. Plurals and other forms (CAT, CATS) count as separate words; capitalised and hyphenated words don't count.
- When the timer runs out, players read their lists aloud. Any word that two or more people wrote is crossed off everyone's list.
Scoring
| Word length | Points |
|---|---|
| 3 letters | 1 |
| 4 letters | 1 |
| 5 letters | 2 |
| 6 letters | 3 |
| 7 letters | 5 |
| 8 or more letters | 11 |
One cube shows QU, and it counts as two letters for scoring. So QUIT is a four-letter word worth 1 point, even though it uses three cubes.
The table rewards length steeply. One seven-letter word (5 points) is worth as much as five three-letter words, and a single eight-letter word (11) equals eleven of them. It's worth spending the last 30 seconds hunting for one long word.
The plural trick
If there's an S on the board next to the end of a word you've found, you probably have a second word for free. In our dictionary, 84% of everyday three-letter words and 84% of four-letter words that don't already end in S also make a valid word with S added. Find CAT next to an S and CATS is right there. The same works for -ED and -ER endings when the board has those letters together.
The catch: in a group game, plurals are the first thing other players find too, so they often get crossed off. The unusual words are the ones that survive.
Tips that work
- Start from the rare letters. A J, K, X or Z has few neighbours that work with it, so the words around it are quick to check and often missed by others.
- Look for common endings like -ING, -ER, -ED and -EST as connected chains, then work backwards from them.
- Use vowels as hubs. A vowel in the middle of the grid touches up to eight cubes, so most words pass through one.
- Write fast, check later. Don't stop to double-check spelling during the three minutes.
Big Boggle
Big Boggle uses a 5×5 grid. Three-letter words don't count there, so the shortest scoring word has four letters. Our Boggle solver handles both 4×4 and 5×5 grids and shows every word on the board with its points, which is handy for settling arguments after a round.
Boggle is a trademark of Hasbro. We aren't affiliated with it. Rules summarised from the standard game.