/tʃeɪn əv wɜːdz/
noun — a game of linked words, in which every word begins with the last letter of the word before it, and every word comes from memory.
How a chain works. Each word starts with the last letter of the one before: garden → night → table. It must be a real dictionary word, not already used. Spelling counts — a wrong word is a strike, three strikes end the run. No hints: every word comes from memory.
Levels. A new level every 5 words. From Level 2, each level deals exactly ONE twist — never two at once: 🍔 Foods only · 🐾 Animals only · 📍 Places only · 🌿 Nature only · ⚡ Turbo (8 seconds a word) · 📏 Long words (6+ letters) · 4+ letters · 5+ letters. The clock tightens as you climb: 20, 15, 12, then 10 seconds. The Daily deals everyone the same ladder; Endless and group chains deal their own.
Pass the baton. Hand this chain to your group chat — whoever opens the link picks up the chain right here and plays the next word.
Word list: built with wordfreq — word-frequency data shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 — incorporating SUBTLEX data by Marc Brysbaert and colleagues (SUBTLEX is freely available data), drawn from OpenSubtitles, Wikipedia, the Leeds collection and ParaCrawl. This game's word list is likewise shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. A supplement of everyday words was vetted against SCOWL (Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists) by Kevin Atkinson, used under its permissive license.
Send this link — your friend plays the same starting word under the same rules and tries to beat your chain.
Your word is in. Send the new link along — the next person adds one word of their own.
Only close it if you're the one who can't move — the closing card goes to the whole group.
This chain is closed. Here's the card to send to the group:
The chain inside it doesn't check out — a word may have been changed, or the link was cut short in copying. Nothing was loaded from it. Ask whoever sent it to pass the link again, or start fresh below.