What's the word?

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A word game about how words travel

Every day Polyglotle hides five English words behind their translations. You start with the language least like English, and each new language brings the word a little closer to home. Guess early for more XP.

Translations checked against Wiktionary. Spelling suggestions use word frequencies from wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0). Map data from Natural Earth via world-atlas.

How scoring works

Each word starts at 10,000 XP.
Each word has five languages. Every extra one costs 2,000 XP.
A wrong guess costs 500 XP. Typos are free: we suggest the word you meant.
Five words a day, up to 50,000 XP.

How the puzzles are made

Each word is an everyday English word with one clear meaning, picked so its translations tell a story: far-off languages first, close cousins last.
Translations come from Wiktionary's translation tables and are checked by hand, one by one. Words in other scripts, like Greek, Hindi or Japanese, come with a romanization so everyone can read them, and you can hear most of them spoken.
The order goes from the language least like English to the closest. A Germanic cousin such as Dutch, German or Swedish usually comes last, where the shared root gives the word away.
No language is used in more than two of a day's words, so each day travels through 20 to 25 languages on every continent, and the globe colours in each one's country as you go.
Spotted a wrong translation? There's a link under every word to tell us.

What's the word?

A word game about how words travel

How scoring works

How the puzzles are made

How to play

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