What is Cemantix?

Cemantix is a daily French word puzzle that gives no letter clues. You submit any French word and receive a temperature score showing how close its meaning sits to the hidden answer. A hundred degrees means you found it, negative values mean you are far away, and words among the thousand nearest also get a rank from 1 to 1000 per mille. The proximity is contextual, computed with a word2vec model trained on over a billion words of French text, so two words that appear in similar sentences score close even when they are not synonyms. There is no length restriction, no position feedback and no attempt limit.

How to play Cemantix

  1. Enter any French word in the Mot field and submit it. Accents count, capital letters do not, and proper nouns are generally rejected.
  2. The returned temperature shows how close the meaning is: negative numbers indicate distance, while higher numbers mean greater similarity.
  3. A rank in per mille appears only if your word is among the thousand closest to the answer. The scale runs from 1 to 1000.
  4. If an icon is unclear, consult the legend in the left panel. It shows the day's temperatures for ranks 1000, 999, 990, 900 and 1, ending with the ice cube at minus a hundred.
  5. Use the warmest results to guide your next guesses. Every attempt is added to a table with the headings Nº, Mot, °C, ‰ and Progression; click a heading to re-sort it.
  6. Stop when the temperature reaches a hundred. You can also press Révéler le mot secret to give up and see the answer.

Reading the feedback

Each accepted word appears in a table under Nº, Mot, °C, a thermometer, ‰ and Progression. A cold word comes back as a negative temperature with an empty rank column, meaning it sits outside the thousand nearest. A repeated word is shown again without being counted. Once a word enters the top thousand, its rank in per mille and a progress bar appear next to the temperature. The legend decodes the icons, and at a hundred degrees the page announces your place among the day's finders and your number of tries, with a share button and a checkbox to reveal the nearest words.

Modes

Mot du jour: One secret word a day, the same for every player, drawn at random at midnight French time, with no attempt limit.

Collaborer: Team play on the same daily word. Create or join a team with a code valid for the day, and every word from the top thousand found by one member is shared with the others.

Tips & strategy

  • Start with broad guesses rather than narrow ones. Abstract words such as travail, matière, or histoire appear in many contexts, so they show you which direction to explore. A precise noun usually gives you much less information.
  • The temperature reflects how words are used near each other, not what they mean. Two words can appear in similar sentences and score close even if they are opposites, so a very warm word may be the answer’s opposite.
  • Once you are close, pay more attention to rank than to temperature. Going from rank 900 to rank 40 is meaningful progress, even if the temperature barely changes.
  • Enter singular forms only. The dictionary excludes conjugated verbs and feminine or plural variants, so look for a singular noun or a masculine singular adjective. A plural or past participle will only waste a turn.
  • Treat the ten-icon line under the day number as your progress bar. It shows how warm your guesses are. Your end-of-game ranking places you among the players who found the word, regardless of how many tries you needed.
  • If you get stuck, play with others. The Collaborer panel generates a code that remains valid for the day. Anyone who enters it receives the top thousand words you find, and you receive theirs.

Why play Cemantix?

Take away the letters and a word game stops being about spelling. Cemantix asks what a word means and who it keeps company with, which is why a session often ends with you learning that two words you thought unrelated sit next to each other in French usage. It suits patient players who enjoy circling a meaning, and the rules say so outright: expect more than six tries, probably dozens, so a session can run from ten minutes to most of an afternoon in the background. Skip it if you want letter feedback or a quick guaranteed finish. It is free, needs no account, and past words cannot be replayed.

Popular questions

How many guesses do I get? No limit. The rules say six will not be enough and that dozens are likely.

Do I get any letter clues? No. Cemantix gives no length, no letters and no positions, only how close a word's meaning sits to the answer, plus its rank once it is among the thousand nearest.

Can I play a day I missed? No. The page shows yesterday's word, and the Historique panel lists past days with the word, your number of tries and how many players found it, but none of them can be replayed.

Do I need an account? No. The game is free without signing up. An optional Twitter sign-in exists only to sync your history or continue a game on another device, and the site states it uses nothing but the identifier.

When does the word change? Every day at midnight French time, and the rules panel converts that to your local time.

Is there an English version? Yes, Cemantle, linked from the left panel with a flag, on the same site and by the same author.