We date the word’s first known use in English · not how old its ancestors are. Almost every English word can be chased back to Latin, Greek or further; if that counted, every card would be six thousand years old.

Cheese and justice show what that means · both come from Latin. But cheese was borrowed into Germanic before English existed, so it reached Britain already inside the language — English never borrowed it, English inherited it. Justice is Roman law and a Roman goddess, older as a word than cheese, but English said rihtwisnes and dom until the Normans brought their courts. Seven hundred years apart in English, same source language.

The year goes with the word as you use it today · FILM is 1905, the movies. The word itself is Old English, for a thin skin, and the histories tell you that part too.

The histories tell you both · when English took the word, and where the word had been before that.

Move a word · the years stay put; the words move. Drag a word up or down, or tap one word and then another, and they trade places.

Most cards are five words; some are six. A six-word card gives you a fourth try.

Three tries · four on a six-word card. Each check turns green every word that is beside its right year, and a green word stays green while it stays put. A green word shows where it came from.

Clue · up to three a card, free. Tap Clue, then a word, and where that word came from appears under it — never enough to name it. Your share says how many you used.

Then, challenge #2 · when the card is over, win or lose: which word is oldest, which is newest, which came in around a date you know, where each word came from, and two from the last card you played. Each answer gives the word’s year and where it came from. Nothing is scored; you see your own count at the end, and Skip goes straight to the word histories.

Learn about word origins · under the finished card, for each word’s story: when English took it, and where it had been before.

The gaps are real · no two words on a card are close enough together for the order to be arguable. If two words look like a coin flip, one of them is older than you think.