Contexto: daily word game

Contexto challenges you to find one secret word a day using meaning rather than spelling. Each guess comes back with a rank showing how closely related it is to the target, where 1 is the answer and big numbers are far away. There are no letter clues and no guess limit, so you chase the concept and let the ranks pull you in.

What is Contexto?

Contexto is a daily word game built around meaning instead of letters. Every day it picks one secret word, and your job is to land on it by typing other words and reading how related they are. When you submit a guess, the game places it in a ranking against thousands of words: rank 1 is the secret word itself, a low number like 8 or 42 means your word is closely related to the target, and a large number in the thousands means it is far away in meaning. You keep guessing, with no cap on attempts, narrowing in on the idea the numbers are pointing toward.

What sets Contexto apart from Wordle and its many clones is that spelling, length, and shared letters do not matter at all. The ranking comes from word-embedding similarity, a technique that measures how often words appear in similar contexts across large amounts of text, so the feedback is about concepts rather than characters. That changes the feel of play completely. Instead of filling in slots, you are exploring a map of meaning, testing categories, switching topics, and watching the rank rise or fall to tell you whether you are getting warmer. A guess can be a perfectly spelled common word and still rank in the thousands if it has nothing to do with the day's theme.

Contexto was made by Nildo Junior, a Brazilian software engineer based in Oslo, Norway. He discovered the game Semantle in early 2022, liked the core idea of guessing by semantic distance but wanted a cleaner and simpler version, and built Contexto as the result. It spread quickly in Brazil before reaching a wider international audience, which is why the game has long supported multiple languages, including English, Portuguese, and Spanish, with the secret word differing between language versions. You pick your language in the in-game settings menu. The official home is the browser at contexto.me, with no download or account required.

The feedback loop is the whole appeal. Each guess returns an exact rank and a colored progress bar showing how close you are, so progress is concrete rather than a vague hot-or-cold guess. When you finish, Contexto generates a shareable summary showing how many guesses it took, which players post to compare runs without spoiling the answer. The difficulty swings day to day depending on how abstract the target is, and a tricky word can take dozens of guesses even for strong players. It suits people who like vocabulary, lateral thinking, and the slow satisfaction of closing in on an idea, and it works well as a relaxed solo puzzle or a friendly daily race against friends.

How to play Contexto

Open contexto.me in your browser. No account or download is needed.
Type any word as your first guess and submit it to start exploring the day's theme.
Read the rank that comes back: a low number means your word is close in meaning, and rank 1 is the secret word.
Use a well-ranked guess as a lead, then try related words and nearby concepts to push the number lower.
If you get stuck, jump to an unrelated topic to probe a new area, or use a hint to reveal a word closer than your best guess. Hints stay available until your best guess reaches rank 2.
Keep guessing with no attempt limit until you land on rank 1, or open the menu to give up and reveal the answer.

Tips and strategy

Open broad: start with general category words like animal, money, or science to find which part of the meaning map is warm before drilling in.
Treat the rank as a gradient, not pass or fail. A word at rank 300 is still a useful signpost pointing toward the right neighborhood.
When a guess ranks in the low hundreds, mine its synonyms, plurals, and tense variations, since closely related forms often rank far better.
If several themed guesses all rank poorly, abandon that theme entirely rather than grinding it, because the target likely lives in a different concept space.
Use hints sparingly to break a true stall: each one reveals a word closer than your current best, and they remain available only until your best guess hits rank 2, so save them for when you are genuinely stuck.
Think about the contexts a word appears in, not just its dictionary definition, since the ranking rewards words that share usage rather than meaning alone.

Good to know

Resets: Daily, at midnight local time
Cost: Free to play in the browser, no signup
Guesses: Unlimited attempts per puzzle
Languages: Multiple, including English, Portuguese, and Spanish (word of the day differs per language)
Archive: Yes, every past daily puzzle is playable, plus a random game option
Creator: Nildo Junior, inspired by Semantle

Contexto FAQ

Is Contexto free?

Yes. Contexto is free to play at contexto.me in any web browser, with no account, signup, or app download required.

How many guesses do you get in Contexto?

There is no guess limit. You can submit as many words as you need to reach rank 1, which is what makes the game reward patience and insight over luck.

When does Contexto reset?

A new secret word goes live each day at midnight in your local time, when the puzzle switches over to the next day's word.

Is there a Contexto archive?

Yes. You can play past daily puzzles from previous days going back to launch, or pick a random game, so you are never limited to just today's word.

Is Contexto related to Wordle?

Only loosely. Both are daily one-word games, but Contexto ignores spelling entirely and ranks your guesses by how related they are in meaning. It was inspired by Semantle, another meaning-based word game, rather than by Wordle's letter clues.