404//MEANINGS
.find {A WORD}

Daily word game · 5 words a day

Real or 404?

Real or 404? is a daily word game. You get five words, each with a meaning. Some are real entries from our dictionary of rare, old and untranslatable words; the others are forgeries we made up to sound just as convincing. Decide which is which. Every real word links to its full entry, and every forgery is owned up to the moment you answer.

Today

Today's five

dealing

Dealing today's words…

How to play

  1. Read the word and its meaning. Five cards a day. Each shows a word and what it is said to mean, without the dates or languages that would give it away.
  2. Call it. Press Real if you think it is a genuine word, or 404 · Fake if you think we made it up. On a keyboard, R and F do the same.
  3. See the answer. A real word links to its full entry, with its history and sources. A forgery shows how we built it, and, where it imitates a real word, which one.
  4. Come back tomorrow. Everyone gets the same five on the same day, and a new set arrives at your midnight. Finishing a day counts towards your streak on My 404, kept on this device only.

Where the words come from

The real ones

The real words are 105 entries from this dictionary: rare English, old slang and words borrowed from other languages. Each has its own page with sources. The meaning on the card is cut from the entry's own definition, trimmed so it does not name a language or a date. Entries whose meaning could not be shown without a giveaway are left out of the game.

The forgeries

The 129 forgeries are words and meanings invented by 404meanings. Before any went in, we searched for it in Wiktionary (which covers every language), Wikipedia, the OneLook word index and Urban Dictionary, and dropped any that turned up as an existing word, name, brand or slang term. If you find one in use somewhere, email [email protected] and it comes out.

Want the real thing? Real word or 404? · Victorian slang · Beautiful words · Words for feelings you can't name · Browse every word

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