What Interactive or Extra Features Does Phrase Finder Offer?

Phrase Finder (phrases.org.uk) is not just a lookup dictionary for phrase meanings and origins — it also includes a small set of interactive and editorial features: a "Guess the phrase" word game, a "Meaning of the day" entry, a reader notes section with published corrections and additions, and trending/popular phrase lists. These sit alongside the main reference content (2,330+ meanings, 363+ idioms, 10,636+ thesaurus entries), so you can use the site either to research a specific phrase or to browse and play.

Guess the phrase

A Wheel-of-Fortune-style round drawn from the site's own dictionary. You pick letters to uncover a hidden saying, and the game uses a buzzer for wrong guesses.

• Input: your letter guesses.
• Action: the game reveals matching letters in the hidden phrase and penalizes misses.
• Expected result: you uncover the full saying, which is drawn from the dictionary rather than written just for the game.

The page shows a partially revealed example — T H E B E ' S K N E E S — which is the kind of mid-round state you'd see before completing the phrase. A "Start a round" link launches it.

This is useful if you want to test recognition of idioms rather than read definitions, or if you're looking for a low-commitment way to browse sayings you wouldn't have searched for.

Meaning of the day

A rotating featured entry on the homepage. The example shown is "All present and correct", defined as "Everything, or everyone, is accounted for," with a link to read the full origin.

• One phrase is surfaced per day.
• Each entry links through to its full meaning-and-origin page.
• A "See all →" link leads to the broader set of daily entries.

If you visit the site regularly, this is the main reason to check the homepage rather than going straight to search — it exposes you to phrases outside whatever you came looking for.

Reader notes

A section of 155 published notes in which readers correct and extend existing entries. These are not raw comments; they are published contributions, and the site presents them as part of its editorial record.

Examples from the page:

• A note on "Six ways to Sunday" citing The Dictionary of American Regional English and Overland Monthly (1883), credited to Stephen Skaar.
• A note tracing "no love lost" back to at least 1585, citing An Exposition Upon the Book of the Canticles, credited to Peter Lukacs.

This matters if you're checking a contested origin: the notes can add earlier citations or alternative senses that the main entry doesn't cover. Treat them as leads to verify against the cited source, not as settled fact.

Trending and popular phrase lists

Two separate discovery surfaces:

• Popular searches — a list of what other visitors look up, including "heavens to murgatroyd," "revenge is a dish best served cold," "don't look a gift horse in the mouth," "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," "dressed to the nines," "happy as larry," "katy bar the door," "the law is an ass," and "saved by the bell."
• Trending / "Rising and falling" — a section tracking which phrases are currently gaining or losing attention.

These are browsing aids, not reference content. They're most useful when you want to see what's commonly searched but don't have a specific phrase in mind.

How the extras relate to the core reference

All four are secondary to the main lookup function. If your goal is a specific phrase's meaning or origin, search or the section indexes (Meanings, Idioms, Phrase thesaurus, Famous last words, Quotes) are the direct route; the interactive features are for discovery and engagement.