Overview
Datamuse is a free word-finding API that helps you discover words by meaning, sound, spelling, and context — no API key needed. It is perfect for beginners who want to build vocabulary tools, word games, crossword helpers, or auto-complete features. Just send a query string and get back a ranked list of matching words.
Beginner Tip
Use the "ml" parameter to find words with similar meaning (e.g., ?ml=ocean returns sea, water, etc.). No authentication is required, so you can start making requests directly from your browser.
Measurement Record
What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.
- Request
- GET https://api.datamuse.com/words?ml=ocean&max=10
- Result
- HTTP 200 · application/json · 554 bytes · compressed
- Response time
- 44 ms (median of 3) · fastest 33 ms
- Transport
- TLSv1.3 · TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 · certificate issued by Amazon
- Browser CORS
- Allowed — Access-Control-Allow-Origin: https://apisscore.com
- Recorded
- 2026-08-10
Fields Returned
Top-level fields present in the response we captured, with the type and value we actually received.
| Field | Type | Value received |
|---|---|---|
| word | string | sea |
| score | integer | 40041792 |
| tags | array | [1 item] |
Captured Response
Captured from a real request to https://api.datamuse.com/words?ml=ocean&max=10 on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.
[
{
"word": "sea",
"score": 40041792,
"tags": [
"syn"
]
}
] Field Reference
word The matching word or phrase found by the query score Relevance score — higher means a better match for your query parameters tags Linguistic tags such as part of speech (n=noun, v=verb, adj, adv) or frequency info Implementation Example
Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.
const url = "https://api.datamuse.com/words?ml=ocean&max=10";
const response = await fetch(url);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data); What Can You Build?
Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.
How This API Fails
We deliberately sent this API a broken request and recorded exactly what came back on 2026-08-10. Knowing the shape of an error before you hit it makes error handling much easier to write.
{
"code": 404,
"message": "HTTP 404 Not Found"
} Common Errors & Troubleshooting
Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.
Measured Score Breakdown
Live HTTP request to the API endpoint
Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026
Technical Specifications
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