All 18 clues solved, with letter counts and a per-clue breakdown. Fresh every morning, verified against the live game.
The Word Craze Daily Theme for December 22, 2023 has 18 clues covering 97 letter tiles, with answers running from 3 to 8 letters. The shortest answers are EVE and SIN and VIE and AVE at 3 letters each, while the longest are STOPPERS and OPPONENT and PEARTREE and SPLENDID at 8 letters. Jump straight to the full clue table if you need a specific answer, or browse the letter breakdown for the vowel and consonant split on every word.
Across today's 18 clues the average answer is 5.4 letters long and 11 (61%) reuse at least one letter internally. S each open 5 answers — the most common starting letter today. Start with the shortest clues — they unlock crossings for the longer ones. Compare with today's Trivia Daily and Daily Mini, or return to the Word Craze hub for level and pack guides.
Yesterday's answers: December 21, 2023. If your app shows a different answer after a patch, ensure your app is up to date — corrections appear here after the next review.
December 22, 2023 · 18 clues
| # | Clue | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Obstructive people in traffic, frustratingly | STOPPERS8 letters |
| 2 | Exaggerated excitement about nothing, initially | HYPE4 letters |
| 3 | Horrify, with little effort | APPALL6 letters |
| 4 | Unfortunate predicament, for sure | POOR4 letters |
| 5 | The beginning of mischief, they say | EVE3 letters |
| 6 | Not equal to "is," that's for certain | ISNT4 letters |
| 7 | Give in to temptation, ultimately | SIN3 letters |
| 8 | Mistake made by removing a soft pencil mark | ERASED6 letters |
| 9 | Female relative showing no mercy | NEVE4 letters |
| 10 | Guided, but without a wheel | STEERED7 letters |
| 11 | Creating the mold for a pot's base | SHAPING7 letters |
| 12 | Errors that may make you say "oops!" | TYPOS5 letters |
| 13 | Competitor ready to fight you | OPPONENT8 letters |
| 14 | Fruit-bearing plant loved by squirrels | PEARTREE8 letters |
| 15 | Fantastic performance by the talented | SPLENDID8 letters |
| 16 | Not as important, but still worth considering | LESSER6 letters |
| 17 | Compete wholeheartedly to win the prize | VIE3 letters |
| 18 | Greeting from alley cat strangely goes overhead | AVE3 letters |
Letter patterns and solving metrics for each answer. See also the full clue table above.
Obstructive people in traffic, frustratingly
Exaggerated excitement about nothing, initially
Horrify, with little effort
Unfortunate predicament, for sure
The beginning of mischief, they say
Not equal to "is," that's for certain
Give in to temptation, ultimately
Mistake made by removing a soft pencil mark
Female relative showing no mercy
Guided, but without a wheel
Creating the mold for a pot's base
Errors that may make you say "oops!"
Competitor ready to fight you
Fruit-bearing plant loved by squirrels
Fantastic performance by the talented
Not as important, but still worth considering
Compete wholeheartedly to win the prize
Greeting from alley cat strangely goes overhead
Five steps that open the full crossword. More tips in the Word Craze hub.
Short answers have fewer crossing tiles, so solving them first seeds the longer answers for free. Scan the whole board and pick out every clue whose answer runs three or four letters - those are your quickest wins.
A clue that ends in "?" is hinting at a pun, double meaning, or lateral connection rather than a straight definition. Read it again as wordplay and the answer usually surfaces fast.
Each answer slot shows how many letters the answer has. Before typing, count the tiles and match them to your candidate word - one letter too long or short means wrong regardless of how good it looks.
Many Daily Theme answers are compound words. If the picture clue shows two distinct objects, name each one and fuse them. Splitting at the natural seam often bypasses the need to know the exact word upfront.
The picture clue and text clue together define the answer but are not redundant - each half adds information the other omits. Read the text, then examine the image for details the text left unnamed.
Five tactics that work on every dated Daily Theme — apply them today and carry them through the rest of the week.
Start with the longest answer on this board. Tap the longest word in the at-a-glance panel above and solve it first. Every crossing letter it places narrows the shorter answers that share a tile with it — on a typical Daily Theme board, one well-placed long answer can cascade three or four shorter entries to a single candidate.
Read the text clue and the image simultaneously. Each clue uses both a written description and a picture. The picture names the subject; the text tells you which property or aspect of that subject the answer covers. Reading only one of them loses half the information in the clue and roughly doubles the chance of guessing wrong.
Count the tile slots on every row before typing. The breakdown section above lists exact tile counts per answer. Cross-check any candidate against the slot length before committing — a five-letter guess in a six-letter slot is always wrong no matter how logical the word feels.
Treat a question-mark clue as a wordplay signal. Clues ending in "?" use a pun, double meaning, or lateral angle rather than a direct definition. Re-read them as playful hints, not factual descriptions. That reframe usually surfaces the answer within one or two re-reads.
Compare with the Trivia Daily and Daily Mini for today. Betta Games sometimes uses related vocabulary across all three daily formats on the same calendar date. If a clue here involves a topic that stumps you, checking today's Trivia Daily or Daily Mini often surfaces the same word in a context that makes the Daily Theme answer obvious.
The Word Craze Daily Theme is a daily picture-clue crossword released every morning by Betta Games. It is distinct from the Daily Mini and the Trivia Daily: the Theme is the full-size grid, solved and dated here every day. Every answer above is verified against the live game before it is published.
Return to the Word Craze section hub for level guides, pack answers, Endless Challenge ranges, and Hard Mode packs. This is an independent fan resource, not affiliated with Betta Games.
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Every answer on this page is read from the game's own puzzle data rather than retyped from another site, and is checked against what the board actually provides — so nothing listed can use a letter the level does not give you. The counts shown are computed from the stored data, not typed in by hand.
Reviewed by Priya Raghunathan, Word Games Editor at Puzzle Solved. The full checking routine is in the methodology, and the standards every page is held to are in the editorial policy.
Last checked — Sep 8, 2026