4 Little Words Answers Oct 20

4 Little Words answers for October 20, 2026

The Puzzle 1 answers for Tuesday, October 20, 2026 were AIRBOATS, BLURBS, STOWAWAYS, and GERMINATION. Every clue and answer across all ten puzzles from that day is listed above with its letter count. This is an archived day — for the current set, head to the main 4 Little Words answers page, which refreshes at each midnight Eastern reset.

How 4 Little Words works

Tips for solving 4 Little Words

• Solve three, get the fourth free. Ten tiles cover exactly four answers with none left over, so once three words are locked in, the leftover tiles are the last answer — you can often assemble it without ever working out the clue.
• Go by letter count, not clue order. The shortest answer is usually just two tiles, which is a handful of combinations to eyeball versus dozens for a nine- or ten-letter word.
• Read the tiles as word parts. Fragments like RE, UN, ING, TION and ER are almost always prefixes or suffixes, so you can guess where a tile sits in a word before you know the word.
• Only ten tiles means you can brute-force the endings. Scan the bank for tiles that could plausibly finish a word of the right length and work backwards from there.
• When two clues could take the same tile, solve the more specific one first — proper nouns and single-answer trivia clues are far less flexible than a general definition.
• Stuck on just one word? Open its clue page for a letter-by-letter reveal, so you can uncover a couple of letters without spoiling the other three answers.

What is 4 Little Words?

4 Little Words is a daily word puzzle from Blue Ox Family Games, the studio behind 7 Little Words, Red Herring and Tiny Little Crosswords. Each board gives four clues and ten letter tiles of two to four letters; you spell every answer by combining tiles, using each tile exactly once. Ten puzzles publish every day, edited by Joe Jordan, and every past day is archived on a dated page like this one.

4 Little Words vs. 7 Little Words

Same tile mechanic, different shape. If you've played 7 Little Words, here's what changes:

Play both? We cover the longer game too — today's 7 Little Words answers are updated at the same midnight reset.

Looking for today's answers?

Open the main 4 Little Words answers page for the current day's ten puzzles. Every previous day also has its own dated archive page — use the date bar to browse.