Nine To Five

Small but mighty, Nine To Five (aka Middlesix) challenges the solver to fit the letters of a given nine-letter word into a small crossword-style grid to form six five-letter words, three reading across and three reading down. The first and fifth letters of each five-letter word are already in place – the solver is looking to position the middle three letters of each of the six words, hence the alternative name Middlesix. 

The shortness of the words means there may be several potential candidates for each five-letter word. With no clues to help, the solver has to rely on their knowledge of what letters can appear before or after others in the English language to start calculating possible candidates for each letter or word space.