State Mottos Quiz

A motto appears, four states are offered, you pick the owner. Fifteen mottos per game out of a deck holding all fifty, roughly ninety seconds. The skill worth building is decoding a Latin phrase on the spot instead of memorizing fifty separate strings.

How to play

The motto fills the navy card. Four state names appear underneath. Tap the state it belongs to.

• Fifteen rounds drawn at random from all fifty mottos, so the deck rotates almost completely between games.
• One point per correct tap, and the score updates instantly.
• Three lives. A miss shows the correct state, then removes a heart.
• Run out of hearts and the game ends before the fifteenth motto.
• 14 out of 15 earns three stars, 9 earns two, 5 earns one.
• Best score and daily streak stay in your browser.

Sort by language before you sort by meaning

A handful of mottos in the deck are in neither Latin nor English, and each one identifies its state the second you see it. Hawaiian belongs to Hawaii. French, "L'étoile du nord", belongs to Minnesota. Italian, "Fatti maschii, parole femine", belongs to Maryland. Spanish, "Oro y plata", belongs to Montana. And "Alki", from Chinook jargon, belongs to Washington.

One word mottos are the fastest points on the board: Eureka for California, Excelsior for New York, Hope for Rhode Island, Friendship for Texas, Industry for Utah, Forward for Wisconsin, Dirigo for Maine and Alki for Washington.

For the Latin entries a single word usually settles it. Astra means stars, so "Ad astra per aspera" is Kansas. Peninsulam means peninsula, so "Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice" is Michigan. Montani means mountaineers, so "Montani semper liberi" is West Virginia. Tyrannis points at Virginia, and Deus at Arizona. A last bucket is easier still, the mottos that simply describe the place: Michigan names its peninsula, Minnesota its northern star, Montana its gold and silver, Alaska its future, and Indiana calls itself the Crossroads of America.

The Latin mottos worth learning first

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