Jumble Answers — today's puzzle, every puzzle, hand-checked.
Your one-stop hub for the Daily Jumble. Today's four words, the cartoon caption, and the bonus puzzle reveal live on each day's dedicated answer page. Below: a strategy guide, the full archive, and how the Jumble has worked since 1954.
The latest Daily Jumbles
The seven most recent Daily Jumbles we've indexed. Tap any card to open that day's full answer page — four scrambled words, cartoon caption, and the bonus puzzle.
What is the Daily Jumble?
The Daily Jumble is a newspaper word puzzle that has appeared in print since 1954. Each puzzle has the same three-act structure: four short scrambled words to unscramble, a cartoon panel with a question or set-up, and a final bonus puzzle whose letters are pulled from a subset of the four answer words. The bonus answer is a pun that resolves the cartoon's joke.
It is one of the most syndicated puzzles in the world. More than 600 newspapers currently run the Jumble, and the franchise has spawned dozens of variant books, a 1990s TV game show, mobile apps, and printable kid's editions. Even in 2026, decades after launch, the Daily Jumble remains the most-played pen-and-paper newspaper puzzle in North America after the crossword.
This page is the hub for every Daily Jumble we've catalogued, with the full answer set published the morning each puzzle runs. We do not spoil the bonus answer on this hub — the puzzle reveals live on each day's dedicated page (for example, today's) so you can use the hub for navigation without losing the satisfaction of solving.
How a Daily Jumble works — the full structure
Every Daily Jumble in the paper follows the exact same template. Here's the anatomy:
1. The four scrambled words
Stacked on the left side of the puzzle, you'll see four jumbled-letter groups, usually five or six letters each. Your job is to unscramble each into a common English word. The puzzle uses everyday vocabulary — no archaic words, no proper nouns, no plurals ending in S unless the singular doesn't.
2. The circled letters
When you write your answer in the boxes below each scrambled word, some of the answer's letter positions are circled. The puzzle highlights those positions so you know which letters to copy down for the bonus puzzle. The circled positions are different every day and chosen by the puzzle constructor.
3. The cartoon
To the right of the four scrambled words sits a single-panel cartoon, almost always with a question or set-up written above it. The cartoon image gives you a visual cue for the punchline answer.
4. The bonus puzzle
At the bottom of the puzzle, underneath the cartoon, you'll find a row of blank spaces and a smaller row of jumbled letters underneath. Those jumbled letters are exactly the letters you wrote down from the circled positions in step 2. Unscramble them to form the punchline of the cartoon's joke.
The bonus answer is almost always a pun, idiom, or compound noun that lands the cartoon's joke. Solving it usually requires you to look at the cartoon image, read the question, and let your brain fill in the most groan-worthy possible punchline.
Strategy & tips for solving the Daily Jumble
The four short scrambles are the easy half of the puzzle. The bonus puzzle is where most readers get stuck. Here are the tactics our editor uses to crack each part:
1. Sort vowels from consonants
Look at the scrambled letters and mentally separate the vowels from the consonants. A 5-letter scramble with two vowels and three consonants usually rearranges to one of a small set of common patterns: CVCCV, CVCVC, or CCVCV. That dramatically narrows the search space.
2. Find the common bigrams
Certain two-letter combinations are far more common in English than others. TH, ER, IN, ON, EN, ED, RE, TI, ES are the top bigrams. If you see those letters together in the scramble, they often stay together in the answer too.
3. Test the suffix first
If the scramble contains -ING, -ED, -ER, -EST, -LY, -ION, the answer almost always ends with that suffix. Pin those letters at the end and work backwards. This solves about a third of all Jumble words on its own.
4. Don't miss the doubled letters
When a scrambled word has two of the same letter, the answer usually places them adjacent: ASSESS, MUDDY, KEEPER, BOTTOM, FUNNY. Doubled-letter answers trip up readers who instinctively spread the same letter apart.
5. For the bonus: read the cartoon first
The bonus puzzle's answer is a pun about the cartoon's image and caption. Before you even look at the jumbled letters, read the cartoon and think: what's the most obvious punny answer to this set-up? Then check whether the bonus letters spell something close to that.
6. Count letter groups in the bonus blanks
The bonus answer is usually a multi-word phrase — “ON THE NOSE”, “THIN ICE”, “FOUL PLAY”. The blank spaces under the cartoon tell you exactly how many words and how many letters per word.
7. When all else fails, work backwards from the punchline
If you know what the cartoon's pun must be, check the bonus letters to confirm — you should be able to find each letter of your guess inside the bonus scramble. If they all match, you're right.
A short history of the Daily Jumble
The Daily Jumble was created in 1954 by puzzle constructor Martin Naydel, who sold it as a syndicated newspaper feature originally titled Scramble. The name was changed to Jumble shortly after launch and the puzzle has run under that name continuously ever since — making it one of the longest-running syndicated puzzles in newspaper history.
In 1958, four years after launch, Naydel handed the puzzle over to Henri Arnold and Bob Lee, who took over as constructors. Their partnership ran for several decades and shaped the modern Jumble template. Henri Arnold continued constructing puzzles into his 80s; Bob Lee retired in the 1990s.
Today the puzzle is constructed by David L. Hoyt (a prolific puzzle constructor whose name appears on dozens of national word-puzzle franchises) with cartoons by long-time Jumble artist Jeff Knurek. The puzzle is distributed by Tribune Content Agency and runs in over 600 daily newspapers in the United States, Canada, and several other English-speaking markets.
Beyond the daily newspaper feature, the Jumble franchise has expanded into dozens of book series (Jumble Crosswords, Jumble BrainBusters, Jumble for Kids, Sports Jumble, Bible Jumble), a syndicated television game show that aired in 1994–95, mobile apps for iOS and Android, and a printable subscription service for puzzle teachers.
The Jumble's longevity is partly explained by its tight constraints — the puzzle never changes structure, never grows or shrinks, never requires apps or accounts. It's a five-minute morning ritual that has outlasted multiple decades of media reshuffling.
Jumble variants & spin-offs
The franchise has multiplied into more than a dozen variant titles. The most popular:
- Jumble Crosswords — a crossword grid where each clue is itself a small Jumble scramble.
- Jumble BrainBusters — trickier 6–7 letter scrambles aimed at experienced solvers.
- Jumble for Kids — simpler 3–4 letter scrambles with a kid-friendly cartoon panel.
- Sports Jumble — a sports-themed version with scrambles around team names, athletes, and sports trivia.
- Bible Jumble — scriptural names and terms scrambled, popular in church and faith-publication settings.
- Jumble TV (1994–95) — the half-hour daytime game show that ran for one season.
- Jumble mobile apps — iOS and Android apps with daily puzzles synced to the syndicated edition.
Daily Jumble FAQ
What time does the new Jumble appear?
The Daily Jumble is distributed to newspapers via Tribune Content Agency the night before publication. Most papers print it in their morning edition.
Where do I see today's answers?
Each day's answer set lives on its own page — today's is at /jumble/june-23-2026. The hub page you're on now links to today's and every past Jumble we've indexed.
Why does the bonus puzzle use circled letters?
The circled letters in the four scrambled-word answers are exactly the letters that go into the bonus puzzle. It's the franchise's way of chaining the puzzles together — you can't solve the bonus until you've solved at least some of the four short words.
How long does a Daily Jumble take to solve?
Most readers finish the four scrambles in 1–3 minutes and the bonus puzzle in another 1–2. Total solve time averages 3–5 minutes.
Who edits today's Daily Jumble?
The current editorial team is David L. Hoyt (puzzle constructor) and Jeff Knurek (cartoonist), distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
Can I play the Jumble online?
Yes — the official site is jumble.com, with daily puzzles plus an archive. Most major newspapers also publish the Daily Jumble in their digital editions. Our pages here index the answers for every published puzzle if you get stuck.
Daily Jumble archive
Every Daily Jumble we've indexed, grouped by month with the most recent first. Click any date to see the full answer set for that day — four scrambled words, cartoon caption, and bonus puzzle.
June 2026 (23)
May 2026 (31)
April 2026 (30)
March 2026 (31)
February 2026 (28)
January 2026 (31)
December 2025 (26)
If you like the Jumble, try these next
Jumble is one of the most-played daily newspaper puzzles, but if you want to round out your morning, these are the others our readers visit most:
