Jigsaw Puzzle Terms

Puzzling is like jazz. Whether you’re the artisan freehand cutting a puzzle at your scroll saw or a puzzler eagerly emptying a freshly-arrived puzzle onto a table, there’s no wrong way to approach a puzzle. For that reason, there isn’t a set vocabulary for the most basic elements of puzzles—the pieces. Each piece is a tiny Rorschach test that reflects the diversity of the people staring at them, and as such, there are many different names for common elements. But if you’re just getting into puzzling – especially hand-cut wooden puzzles — some of the terminology can be difficult to decipher. So whether you’re starting your journey with one of Rental Puzzles or a 700-piece custom puzzle, this guide is here to help put the pieces together.

So What Do You Call Puzzle Pieces?

Thanks to social media and a growing online community of puzzlers, a shared lexicon has developed—and of course, context clues help! Most importantly in this exercise, the part of a piece that sticks out and interlocks into an adjoining piece is called a knob, nubby, key, tab, outie, loop, male, or bump depending on its shape. Conversely, the part of a piece that is indented and receives an adjoining piece is called a hole, lock, innie, blank, socket, slot, female, pocket, or notch.

Other Common Puzzle Terms

Beyond these building blocks exists a symphony of illustrative euphemisms—"double clover with a false corner” or “silhouette piece with a dog leg.” Puzzle pieces connect, or don’t, in various ways. Even our artisans use a variety of terms to describe how pieces “fit” within a puzzle. Furthermore, there are specific phrases and terms of art that are useful to know when ordering your first puzzle; bigger picture embellishments and customizations that one can implement. The below glossary is designed to answer these questions as you come upon them.

Puzzle Glossary

Anchoring	Connecting one or several floating sections to an edge.
Blanks	The "female" connector in a puzzle piece that is indented and receives an adjoining piece. Also known as holes, pockets, slots, sockets, locks, innies, or notch.
Border Style	The edge of a puzzle. "Regular" edges are straight-edged rectangles while "Irregular" edges have a design cut into them and may not be straight. This adds to the puzzle's difficulty and visual interest.
Color-line cuts	Cutting precisely between two colors to make the puzzle more challenging. A type of Whimsy Piece.
Contour cut	Pieces cut to follow the lines of an image. Early jigsaw puzzles were handcut maps designed to help children learn geography.
Connectors	The "male" knobs of a puzzle piece. These can be "unique," "non-unique," "fancy," "split" or "whimsical."
Cutting Tricks	The puzzle artisan can include trick edge and corner pieces, false edge and corner pieces and color line cutting among other cutting tricks. The more tricks in a puzzle, the more difficult the puzzle will be.
Custom	At Elms Puzzles, a custom puzzle is a handcrafted wooden puzzle that you configure from the image to the special pieces and edges. Like all of our puzzles, custom puzzles are crafted using 1/4" thick hardwood and a delicate blade, one piece at a time. No computers, no lasers. Just a skilled artisan, fine materials, and simple tools.
Dead end cuts	Extra cuts in a whimsy piece that only go partly through the piece. Dead end cuts give whimsy pieces more definition and detail.
Decorative Edge	An edge that deviates from a straight edge to complement the design and add complexity to a puzzle. See also: Irregular Edge
Die cut	The method mass producing cardboard puzzles. All Elms Puzzles are handcut by people.
Drop outs	Drop outs are holes intentionally cut out of the interior portion of the puzzle image that enhance or highlight areas of the image and make the puzzle more difficult to assemble.
Edges first	A common way to approach puzzling—starting with straight pieces and working one's way to the center. However, Elms' cutters incorporate straight pieces into the center and corners of the puzzle to increase complexity and make you sweat a little bit!
Fake corner	Pieces that look like traditional corner pieces but are located within the puzzle.
False fit	Also known as a false positive, false fit pieces look like they can fit in a position, when in fact, they do not.
Floater	A section or sections of puzzle that haven't been connected to other sections yet. A common approach to puzzling.
Interacting silhouettes	Two related silhouette pieces that touch each other to create a larger scene. A type of Whimsy Piece.
Interlocking	Elms makes interlocking wooden jigsaw puzzles. Interlocking pieces hold together because one piece “locks” into the other. If an entire puzzle is interlocking, you can often lift it by one edge to turn it upside down to look at the back of the puzzle.
Irregular Edge	A puzzle border that has had a design cut into it, and may not be straight. This adds to the puzzle's difficulty and visual interest. See also: Decorative Edge. These can be added to custom puzzle orders.
Laser cut	A method of puzzlemaking that involves thin plywood or MDF (medium density fiberboard), computer design, and a laser cutter. Elms Puzzles are not laser cut, but cut freehand by artisans at an incredibly fine-toothed jigsaw.
Personal pieces	When making a custom puzzle, we can include pieces in the shape of letters, numbers, or objects that are special to you. A type of Whimsy Piece.
Pocket Puzzles	Pocket puzzles are small, 15-piece puzzles that serve as an introduction to Elms and hand-cut wooden puzzles.
Pre-Cut	At Elms, Pre-Cut puzzles are puzzles that have already been configured and cut, and are ready to ship.
Retired Puzzle	A few times a year, Elms will "retire" puzzles from the rental library and offer them at a discount. Puzzles are retired for various reasons; some have been rented many times and some have never been rented. Elms Club members receive early access to these sales.
Sculpting	Also called “sliver dropouts,” sculpting is when negative space is used to create shapes or figures.
Signature pieces	Signature pieces are a special shape or figure that the cutter has adopted as their “signature.” Companies also have signature pieces. Elms' signature piece is its tree logo. Each of our artisan cutters has a signature piece that appears in every puzzle they cut. A type of Whimsy Piece.
Silhouette pieces	Pieces in the shape of a person or object, usually inspired by the puzzle’s image. Every Elms puzzle contains an array of silhouette pieces.
Semi-Interlocking	Puzzles that have some pieces that “lock” and others that loosely fit together.
Special Pieces	Contour, whimsy, sihouette pieces, or other custom features cut into the puzzle by a puzzle artisan.
Split Corner	A corner piece that is split in half to obscure the fact that it's a corner piece.
Tabs	The "male" part of a puzzle piece. Also known as a knob, nubby, key, outie, loop, male, or bump depending on its shape.
Whimsy piece	A puzzle piece that has been cut to represent the shape of an object. In addition to objects that may have some relevancy to the overall puzzle, all Elms Puzzles include our tree logo featured as a signature whimsy piece. See also "Special Pieces" or "Contour Cut"