Play word games online

For language lovers, one of the best things about the Internet is the ability to play word games online. There are a wealth of sites that offer an almost endless variety of word games to choose from. Some sites will even send a collection of your favorite word games to your email every morning.

Technology has taken the world a long way past the morning paper when it comes to word games. With new sites popping up every day, the options for those who love to play word games online is only going to increase.

Where to Play Word Games Online

While there are literally hundreds of online word game sites, not all of them are equal. Some sites advertise free play, but in reality, don't deliver on that promise. On other free sites, the high number of pop up windows and advertisements can be very distracting and annoying. However, many sites provide a wide variety of free games with a clean, professional presentation. The sites below promise an enjoyable online experience.

• Games.com: Games.com has over 20 free word games available for online play. All of the free games can also be downloaded to your computer and played locally, if you prefer. A partial list of titles available includes Boggle, flexicon, Scrabble, word slinger, and word Zen.
• Word Plays.com: Word Plays is a simple, no nonsense site that features five of the most popular word games: crossword challenge, boggler, words in a word, word morph, and Scrabble.
• Yahoo! Games: Yahoo! Games offers over 40 free online word games for you to choose from. Some games available include bookworm, Yahoo! Graffiti, text twist, word racer, literati, crossword, Boggle, and word séance.
• Merriam Webster Online: Famous for publishing dictionaries, Merriam Webster has made several great word games available on its site. Nearly 20 games are available, including a crossword puzzle of the day and a game of the day.
• Scrabulous: Scrabulous advertises itself as "the coolest word game enjoyed by millions of users." The game is free, but requires you to sign up and create an account. Besides standard Scrabulous, other versions are available including an email based game and Scrabulous Blitz, where games are played in short, four minute rounds.
• Pogo.com: The word games at Pogo.com are animated and very colorful. Word Whomp, Scrabble, crossword puzzles, and hangman are popular games available at this family-friendly site.
• Academic Skills Builder: This educational Web site has five word games that are geared towards younger gamers. The site's philosophy is to encourage learning through fun and educational online games. The animation is very professional and the games are highly effective. This site would also be beneficial to ESL students who are looking for new ways to practice their English.
• Shockwave Word Games: Over 50 word games are available for online play at Shockwave.com. The games are ranked according to user rating, so you have an idea of what games other people like to help you make your choices.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are more than enough places to play word games online, which is great news for the lover of word games. Some sites are more graphic intensive while others are more bare bones. Try a few out and see which ones work the best for you. Whether your interest is to improve your vocabulary or just to relax, it's good to know the many options that are available to you in the world of online word games.