404meanings / The Scriptorium / Daily puzzle
One old word a day
The Daily Puzzle
One old English word a day, from the Scriptorium’s checked shelves. Pick what it meant from four real meanings — you have three tries — then guess the age it was first recorded in. A new word arrives at midnight, your time.
Shown: Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill — Pieter Claesz, 1628 · The Met, public domain
The Daily Puzzle
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Today’s word
What did it mean?
Three tries left
When was it first recorded?
Two tries left
Opens once you have found the meaning, or used your three tries.
Today’s entry
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Show the word for Monday 5 October 2026
Tudor & Stuart · insult · noun
Ninnyhammer
NIN-ee-ham-er
A fool or simpleton; an extended form of 'ninny'. What the '-hammer' adds is unclear (one tentative suggestion is dialect 'hammer', a clumsy person, or to stammer).
- First recorded
- by 1590
- Hangs in
- Tudor & Stuart
Where it was first recordedThe Cobbler of Canterbury (1590), per Green's Dictionary of Slang; Merriam-Webster and the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary give 1592 (Nashe, Four Letters Confuted)
How it works
- One word a dayThe same word for everyone on the same date, changing at midnight on your clock. All 105 words on the shelves have their day before any comes round again.
- What did it mean?Four meanings, all real: each is a short part of a word’s entry on these shelves, word for word. Three tries, and a hint after each miss.
- When was it first recorded?Pick the age of its earliest record: one of the four wings, or after 1910. Miss, and we say whether it is earlier or later. Two tries.
- Read the entry, keep the streakIts full meaning, its first record and where that record is from; a result to copy and share; and a streak kept only in this browser.
Past words
The words of the last thirty days, newest first. Today’s stays hidden until you have played it.
No. 1 is today’s word, so there are no past words yet. They will be listed here, newest first.
Questions
How does the Daily Puzzle work?
Each day there is one old English word. First pick what it meant from four meanings — all four are real meanings of words in the Scriptorium — with three tries and a hint after each miss. Then guess the age it was first recorded in: Medieval, Tudor & Stuart, Georgian, Victorian & Edwardian, or after 1910. After a wrong age you are told whether it is earlier or later. Then you see its full entry: its meaning, its first record and where that record is from.
When does the word change?
At midnight on your own device's clock. Everyone who plays on the same date gets the same word, and the calendar works through all 105 words on the shelves before any of them comes round again.
Where is my streak kept?
Only in this browser, in its local storage: your streak, your best streak and today's answers. Nothing is sent to 404meanings or anyone else, there is no account, and clearing this site's data in your browser resets it. Your streak grows when you finish the puzzle on consecutive days.
Are the words and dates real?
Yes. Every word comes from the Scriptorium's shelves, each dated to the earliest record we could confirm in the historical dictionaries, with its sources on its page. One of them, dewdropper, is real but younger than it is usually sold as: it is shared as Victorian slang, but it is on record from 1922, so its age in the puzzle is after 1910.