The news, decoded.
REBUS: from the Latin non verbis sed rebus… not by words, but by things.
A rebus puzzle encodes a word or phrase using pictures, symbols, and visual tricks instead of letters. Rebusly takes this ancient format and applies it to today's news — a new hand-made visual puzzle every morning, free in your browser.
Play Today's RebuslyA rebus is a puzzle where the answer is hidden in how words, letters, and images are arranged — not what they literally say. The word comes from the Latin non verbis sed rebus, meaning "not by words, but by things." A word falling out of a frame means FALLING OUT. Letters that grow from small to large mean RISING. A word crossed through means CEASE + the word. The visual IS the clue.
Rebus puzzles have existed for centuries — on medieval manuscripts, pub signs, coat of arms. Rebusly brings the format online as a free daily browser game, with each puzzle encoding a phrase from today's news headlines. Visual is the open category on the daily-game shelf. Words, geography, music, and math each have their own daily game, and the one you read as a picture is Rebusly.
Every puzzle is hand-authored to match its headline, but the same handful of reading moves does most of the work. These are the ones that carry the answer most often across the puzzles published so far.
The commonest move by far, in roughly two of every three puzzles. A word above, below, inside or beside another is telling you a preposition: over, under, in, between, behind.
Close to half of all puzzles turn on sound rather than spelling. Pieces run together into something you hear, so a picture and a word can combine into a syllable neither of them contains.
About a third count. The same word twice, a symbol repeated five times, a letter missing from a run — the number of things is the clue, not the things themselves.
Around a third hinge on naming a symbol out loud and using the name as a word. What the icon depicts matters less than what it is called.
A seventh of puzzles single out one element in the accent colour. The highlighted word is the one being acted on, or the one to read first.
A tenth use scale. A small word can simply mean small, and a word growing or shrinking across the canvas reads as rising or falling.
Rotation and mirroring. A tilted word leans, a flipped one runs backwards, one on its side has been knocked over.
Containment proper: one word bracketed within another, so the inner one is literally inside the outer.
Each puzzle uses one or more encoding techniques to hide a phrase in plain sight.
Type your answer. Three progressive hints help if you're stuck: topic, mechanic, then first letters.
Every answer is a real headline. Solving unlocks four curated articles covering the story.
Look at how the words and images are arranged, not just what they say. A word inside a box might mean "boxed in." A word getting smaller might mean "shrinking" or "declining." The position, size, direction, and visual treatment ARE the clue.
They vary. Some click instantly — you see the visual trick and the answer appears. Others take time. Rebusly includes three progressive hints for every puzzle, so you can always get unstuck without giving up entirely.
Yes. Rebusly is completely free — no account, no ads, no paywall. A new puzzle goes live every morning at 8:15 AM Eastern. You can also play any past puzzle from the archive.
Every Rebusly puzzle reveals its answer once you solve it — or after you've exhausted three hints. The answer isn't just a word: it's a real news phrase, and the reveal unlocks four curated articles explaining the full story behind it.
One word is drawn bracketed inside another, so the inner word is literally within the outer one. Read it as containment: hidden within, buried, embedded, or inside. The box around the inner word is the clue, not decoration.
A cryptogram substitutes one letter for another and is solved by frequency and pattern. A rebus encodes meaning in pictures, position, size and treatment, so the arrangement carries the answer rather than the letters themselves.
A line struck through a word negates it. Read the word, then remove or reverse it: absence, loss, prohibition, or “not” the thing named.
Size change is direction. Letters growing left to right read as growth, rise or escalation; letters shrinking read as decline, reduction or contraction.
Mirrored letters mean the word runs backwards: reflection, reverse, about-face or U-turn. Often only some letters are flipped, and those are the ones carrying the meaning.
A box reads as enclosure. Depending on the phrase it can mean boxed in, contained, or simply inside, and the word placed within it is the one being enclosed.
Vertical position is meaning. A word sitting over another reads as over, on top of, above, or rising above the one beneath it.
Name each symbol out loud and treat the name as a word, not an illustration. Symbols chain with the words beside them, and the sound of the name usually matters more than the thing it depicts.
A column of images or words where the first letters, read downwards, spell the answer. A variant picks the same letter position in every word rather than the first.
Because a rebus is read aloud as much as looked at. Tiles can chain phonetically, so the answer emerges from the sounds the pieces make when run together, not from how they are spelled.
Rebusly is free and always has been. No account, no ads, no paywall on the archive. Every puzzle the site has run stays open, as far back as you want to go. On other daily games the back catalogue is where the subscription starts. Here it costs nothing.
Solve today's puzzle and a streak starts, and each morning you come back it grows. Miss a day and it resets. When you share your result, the card shows your time and hints as small shapes, never the answer, so nothing spoils it for the next player. Those shapes read the same for colorblind players, with no color needed to tell them apart.
New puzzle every morning. Free in your browser. No download required.
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