Datamuse API

Beginner's Pick Open Source Projects / No Auth Required Beginner HTTPS
Free to Use
71 B
Measured Score 0 50 100 Speed 25/30 Consistency 8/20 Security 20/20 Browser access 10/15 Transparency 8/15 TESTED 2026-08-10

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.

JSON Response · Captured
[
  {
    "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.

Request
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.

HTTP 404 Requesting a path that does not exist application/json
{
  "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.

Empty results array The query term is too obscure or misspelled
Try a more common synonym or check spelling; also verify the constraint parameters (ml, sl, sp) are not conflicting
Too many results returned No max parameter set — defaults to 100 results
Add &max=10 (or any number 1-1000) to limit the response size
Unexpected characters in URL Query strings with spaces or special characters were not URL-encoded
URL-encode your query, e.g. replace spaces with %20 or use encodeURIComponent() in JavaScript

Measured Score Breakdown

Live HTTP request to the API endpoint

Speed 25/30
Consistency 8/20
Security 20/20
Browser access 10/15
Transparency 8/15
Endpoint Response Time 44ms

Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026

Technical Specifications

Auth No Auth
HTTPS REQUIRED
CORS UNKNOWN
Difficulty Beginner
Endpoint last called: 2026-08-10

Similar APIs

View All →