Word Search Puzzle Stats - #361-#400
First published: Monday March 23rd, 2026
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Introduction
The Word Search, which seemed to have been nearly forgotten before February, has made its full-scale return, new and improved! Since its return, we've seen quite a few new puzzles featured on the Front Page, so I thought what better time to start a new blog series with data on the puzzles! This will focus on puzzle stats that can't be accessed through the on-site Stats screen, including stats on the words, letters, grid sizes, and more! This is the first blog in the series, which will cover puzzles #361 through #400. Enjoy!
Definitions
- Word: Any individual answer in a puzzle. Answers with two or more words by convention (e.g. "United States") still count as one word.
- Letter: Any uppercase or lowercase letter in the English alphabet. Accented letters are counted but will have their accent marks stripped (e.g. "Lomé" becomes "Lome"); numbers do not count as letters.
- Character: Any alphanumeric character (letter or number). Spaces and punctuation do not count as characters in this blog.
- Word length: The number of characters in a word.
- Puzzle density: The ratio of the total number of characters in all words over the number of cells in the puzzle's grid.
Word Stats
1. Overview
✓ From #361 to #400, there were 809 words in all puzzles, for an average of 20.2 words per puzzle.
✓ The puzzle with the most words was #363 (Journey) by MasterRocket, with 33 words.
✓ The puzzles with the fewest words were #384 (It's The Little Things) by LuckyCat and #388 (Emotions) by IridiumPingo, with 12 words each.
✓ All puzzles contained 4,355 characters in total, for an average word length of 5.38 characters.
✓ The puzzle with the longest words was #380 (European Geography) by Pontiac, with an average of 7.11 characters per word (128 chars in 18 words).
✓ The puzzle with the shortest words was #391 (World Cities with Four Letters) by Lindwyrm, with an average of 4.00 characters per word (88 chars in 22 words).
✓ The longest word overall was "North Carolina" in puzzle #370 (U.S. State Shapes) by Stewart, with 13 characters.
2. Puzzles by Word Count
| Rank | Puzzle | Creator | Words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Most Words | |||
| 1 | #363 Journey | MasterRocket | 33 |
| 2 | #364 "A"-Only Words | MasterRocket | 29 |
| 3 | #376 "O"-Only Words | MasterRocket | 27 |
| =4 | #366 NATO Alphabet | MasterRocket | 26 |
| =4 | #379 "U"-Only Words | MasterRocket | 26 |
| Fewest Words | |||
| =1 | #384 It's The Little Things | LuckyCat | 12 |
| =1 | #388 Emotions | IridiumPingo | 12 |
| 3 | #395 Roman Gods | Marli5 | 14 |
| =4 | #375 Fifteen Shades of Grey | Insaniot | 15 |
| =4 | #378 How Did We Get Here? | Trompete79 | 15 |
| =4 | #385 NBA Logos | HubertThePhoenix | 15 |
3. Word Length Statistics
Here are the top 5 puzzles with the longest and shortest words:
| Rank | Puzzle | Creator | Avg. length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Longest Words | |||
| 1 | #380 European Geography | Pontiac | 7.11 |
| =2 | #371 What Do You Do For A Living ? | toowise | 7.00 |
| =2 | #392 Into the Unknown | KiloNova | 7.00 |
| 4 | #370 U.S. State Shapes | Stewart | 6.72 |
| 5 | #381 Coffee | KiloNova | 6.41 |
| Shortest Words | |||
| 1 | #391 World Cities with Four Letters | Lindwyrm | 4.00 |
| 2 | #372 Words With JETPUNK | MasterRocket | 4.10 |
| 3 | #368 Boxed-In | MasterRocket | 4.24 |
| 4 | #383 Unprominent Consonants | MasterRocket | 4.28 |
| 5 | #389 SI Prefixes | akjlddkjslfsd | 4.48 |
(All numbers rounded to 2 decimal places)
Letter Stats
1. Overview
✓ The most common letter in all puzzles was E with 486 occurrences, representing 11.2% of all letters.
✓ 38.3% of all letters were vowels (A, E, I, O, U).
✓ Compared to average letter frequencies in English, 15 letters were "above average" while the other 11 were "below average".
✓ The most common starting letter in all puzzles was S with 97 times at the start of a word, representing 12.0% of all starting letters.
✓ Compared to average starting letter frequencies in English, 19 letters were "above average", 6 were "below average", and one letter had the same frequency as the average.
2. Letter Frequency Statistics
Here's the number of occurrences of each letter, the percentage each letter accounts for, and a comparison against average letter frequencies in English language texts (sourced from this table on Wikipedia):
| Letter | Occurrences | % | Avg % | Diff. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 414 | 9.506 | 8.167 | +1.339 |
| B | 90 | 2.067 | 1.492 | +0.575 |
| C | 165 | 3.789 | 2.782 | +1.007 |
| D | 131 | 3.008 | 4.253 | -1.245 |
| E | 486 | 11.160 | 12.702 | -1.542 |
| F | 74 | 1.699 | 2.228 | -0.529 |
| G | 107 | 2.457 | 2.015 | +0.442 |
| H | 140 | 3.215 | 6.094 | -2.879 |
| I | 256 | 5.878 | 6.966 | -1.088 |
| J | 29 | 0.666 | 0.153 | +0.513 |
| K | 90 | 2.067 | 0.772 | +1.295 |
| L | 225 | 5.166 | 4.025 | +1.141 |
| M | 126 | 2.893 | 2.406 | +0.487 |
| N | 254 | 5.832 | 6.749 | -0.917 |
| O | 323 | 7.417 | 7.507 | -0.090 |
| P | 135 | 3.100 | 1.929 | +1.171 |
| Q | 9 | 0.207 | 0.095 | +0.112 |
| R | 334 | 7.669 | 5.987 | +1.682 |
| S | 259 | 5.947 | 6.327 | -0.380 |
| T | 276 | 6.338 | 9.056 | -2.718 |
| U | 187 | 4.294 | 2.758 | +1.536 |
| V | 36 | 0.827 | 0.978 | -0.151 |
| W | 57 | 1.309 | 2.360 | -1.051 |
| X | 21 | 0.482 | 0.150 | +0.332 |
| Y | 108 | 2.480 | 1.974 | +0.506 |
| Z | 23 | 0.528 | 0.074 | +0.454 |
(All numbers rounded to 3 decimal places)
3. Starting Letters
Here's the number of times each letter started a word, the percentage of each letter as the first letter, and a comparison against average starting letter frequencies in English language texts (sourced from this table on Wikipedia):
| Letter | Times at Word Start | % | Avg % | Diff. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 38 | 4.7 | 11.7 | -7.0 |
| B | 46 | 5.7 | 4.4 | +1.3 |
| C | 59 | 7.3 | 5.2 | +2.1 |
| D | 38 | 4.7 | 3.2 | +1.5 |
| E | 35 | 4.3 | 2.8 | +1.5 |
| F | 39 | 4.8 | 4.0 | +0.8 |
| G | 26 | 3.2 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| H | 33 | 4.1 | 4.2 | -0.1 |
| I | 14 | 1.7 | 7.3 | -5.6 |
| J | 20 | 2.5 | 0.5 | +2.0 |
| K | 23 | 2.8 | 0.9 | +2.0 |
| L | 39 | 4.8 | 2.4 | +2.4 |
| M | 31 | 3.8 | 3.8 | 0.0 |
| N | 24 | 3.0 | 2.3 | +0.7 |
| O | 17 | 2.1 | 7.6 | -5.5 |
| P | 63 | 7.8 | 4.3 | +3.5 |
| Q | 7 | 0.9 | 0.2 | +0.6 |
| R | 36 | 4.4 | 2.8 | +1.6 |
| S | 97 | 12.0 | 6.7 | +5.3 |
| T | 58 | 7.2 | 16.0 | -8.8 |
| U | 13 | 1.6 | 1.2 | +0.4 |
| V | 10 | 1.2 | 0.8 | +0.4 |
| W | 21 | 2.6 | 5.5 | -2.9 |
| X | 3 | 0.4 | <0.1 | +0.3 |
| Y | 11 | 1.4 | 0.8 | +0.6 |
| Z | 8 | 1.0 | <0.1 | +0.9 |
(All numbers rounded to one decimal place)
Miscellaneous Stats
1. Puzzles by User
✓ All puzzles from #361 to #400 were made by 22 unique users.
✓ MasterRocket has the most featured puzzles with 14; five users have 2 puzzles each; 16 only have one puzzle each.
2. Puzzles by Density
✓ The average density of all puzzles from #361 to #400 was 1.226.
✓ The densest puzzle was #364 ("A"-Only Words) by MasterRocket, with a density of 1.790.
✓ The least dense puzzle was #396 (Pokémon Types) by Hotwire, with a density of 0.970. It is also the only puzzle with a density less than 1.
Here are the top 5 puzzles with the highest and lowest density:
| Rank | Puzzle | Creator | Density |
|---|---|---|---|
| Densest | |||
| 1 | #364 "A"-Only Words | MasterRocket | 1.790 |
| 2 | #372 Words With JETPUNK | MasterRocket | 1.673 |
| 3 | #376 "O"-Only Words | MasterRocket | 1.617 |
| =4 | #383 Unprominent Consonants | MasterRocket | 1.571 |
| =4 | #390 "Y"-Only Words | MasterRocket | 1.571 |
| Least Dense | |||
| 1 | #396 Pokémon Types | Hotwire | 0.970 |
| 2 | #397 Muppets | AmyJane0511 | 1.030 |
| 3 | #370 U.S. State Shapes | Stewart | 1.034 |
| 4 | #392 Into the Unknown | KiloNova | 1.041 |
| 5 | #385 NBA Logos | HubertThePhoenix | 1.049 |
(All numbers rounded to 3 decimal places)
3. Puzzles by Grid Size
✓ The average grid size of all puzzles from #361 to #400 was 91.1 cells.
✓ The puzzle with the largest grid was #363 (Journey) by MasterRocket, with 169 cells.
✓ Five puzzles are tied for the smallest grid:
- #372 (Words With JETPUNK) by MasterRocket;
- #383 (Unprominent Consonants) by MasterRocket;
- #384 (It's The Little Things) by LuckyCat;
- #388 (Emotions) by IridiumPingo; and
- #394 (QWERTY Party) by MasterRocket.
All these puzzles have only 49 cells in their grids.
Here are the top 5 puzzles with the largest and smallest grids:
| Rank | Puzzle | Creator | # of Cells |
|---|---|---|---|
| Largest | |||
| 1 | #363 Journey | MasterRocket | 169 |
| =2 | #371 What Do You Do For A Living ? | toowise | 144 |
| =2 | #393 Keep On Trucking! | toowise | 144 |
| 4 | #361 Codebreaker | Stewart | 132 |
| 5 | #374 Japanese Words | Elboy | 127 |
| Smallest | |||
| =1 | #372 Words With JETPUNK | MasterRocket | 49 |
| =1 | #383 Unprominent Consonants | MasterRocket | 49 |
| =1 | #384 It's The Little Things | LuckyCat | 49 |
| =1 | #388 Emotions | IridiumPingo | 49 |
| =1 | #394 QWERTY Party | MasterRocket | 49 |
Conclusion
This wraps up all the data I have for puzzles #361 to #400. This took me quite a while to put together, so I really hope you found it interesting! The next blog in this series will cover stats for puzzles #401 to #450.
That's all for this blog, and see you in the next one.
Great blog! I love the formatting.