Wordle is a daily five-letter word puzzle that gives you six guesses to find the hidden answer. The colored tiles turn every guess into a deduction: green is a correctly placed letter, yellow is a letter in the answer but the wrong position, and gray is a letter that is unavailable—subject to duplicate-letter counting.
Wordle is a daily word puzzle in which you try to identify a hidden five-letter word in six guesses or fewer. Every guess reveals information: green tiles show letters in the correct places, yellow tiles show letters that belong in the answer but are in the wrong places, and gray tiles show letters that are not available—or, in duplicate-letter situations, that you have used more times than the answer does.
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The official digital Wordle is available through The New York Times website and the official NYT Games app. You do not need the physical game to play the daily online puzzle, and buying the physical game does not unlock or change the digital version.
How to play Wordle
- Open Wordle on The New York Times website or in the official NYT Games app.
- Enter any accepted five-letter word.
- Submit the guess to reveal the tile colors.
- Keep green letters in their confirmed positions.
- Move yellow letters to positions you have not yet ruled out.
- Use the information to solve the answer within six total guesses.
There is one puzzle for the day in the standard game. The answer is the same for players playing that day’s puzzle, although your guesses and results are your own.
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What the Wordle colors mean
| Tile color | Meaning | What to do next |
|---|---|---|
| Green | The letter is in the answer and in the correct position. | Keep that letter fixed in that position. |
| Yellow | The letter is in the answer, but not in the position you guessed. | Use the letter again in a different position. |
| Gray | The letter is not present, or you guessed more copies of it than the answer contains. | Usually remove the letter from consideration, while checking duplicate-letter information carefully. |
Green means “right letter, right place”
A green tile is the most definite clue. If the second tile turns green after you play CRANE, the answer has R in its second position. You should preserve that placement in later guesses.
Yellow means “right letter, wrong place”
A yellow tile confirms that the letter appears somewhere in the answer, but not in the position where you played it. If the A in CRANE is yellow, the answer contains A, but A cannot occupy that same position. Yellow does not mean that the letter is close to being correct in a general sense; it gives a specific presence-and-position constraint.
Gray usually rules out a letter—but letter counts matter
Gray feedback is more complicated when a guess repeats a letter. Wordle evaluates the correct copies of a letter first. It then gives yellow feedback to additional copies only if the answer still has an unmatched copy available.
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When repeated letters are involved, track both where a letter can go and how many times it can occur. Do not automatically conclude that every copy of a letter is absent just because one copy turned gray.
Are all accepted guesses possible answers?
No. Wordle has a broad list of words that you can enter as guesses and a smaller, curated list of words that can be selected as daily answers. An accepted entry proves that Wordle allows it as a guess; it does not guarantee that the word can appear as the solution.
This distinction is intentional. The original game was designed around familiar, recognizable words rather than an unrestricted dictionary filled with obscure entries. That makes the puzzle a deduction challenge instead of a contest to find the most unusual five-letter word.
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A practical Wordle strategy for beginners
1. Start with an information-rich word
Your opening guess should usually test several common letters and include useful vowels. Avoid wasting the first row on repeated letters unless you have a specific reason to test one. A word with five different letters can reveal more about the answer than a word that tests the same letter twice.
There is no single objectively best starting word for every player. Computer analyses can rank openings by expected information, how they divide the remaining answer list, or the probability of an immediate solve. Those goals are not identical. A player who values consistency may prefer a familiar word with common letters; another may choose an opening designed to maximize information; someone else may favor a word they can reliably remember and spell.
2. Fix greens and relocate yellows
After each guess, write down the pattern you know. Treat green letters as fixed anchors. Treat yellow letters as required letters with forbidden positions. Do not put a yellow letter back into the same position unless you are deliberately testing a more complicated duplicate-letter possibility.
For example, a result such as _ A _ _ _, with R known to be present but not in position three, is not just a collection of hints. It is a set of constraints: A must remain in position two, R must appear somewhere other than position three, and every gray letter should normally be excluded.
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3. Use guesses that test new letters
Early in the puzzle, an exploratory guess can be more valuable than a guess that is merely plausible. If your first word produces only one confirmed letter, use the next guess to test several unconfirmed common letters rather than repeating the same unhelpful ones.
This is an information trade-off. An exploratory word may be unlikely to solve the puzzle immediately, but it can eliminate many possible answers at once. That approach is especially useful when the remaining candidates differ by several letters.
4. Switch from discovery to confirmation
Once you have a strong pattern and only a few candidates remain, stop using broad guesses that test unrelated letters. Compare the candidates directly. Ask:
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- Does each candidate obey every green position?
- Are all yellow letters included in legal positions?
- Have gray letters been removed?
- Could the answer contain a repeated letter?
- Are you overlooking an accepted but less familiar word?
At this stage, the best move is often a confirmation guess that separates two or three realistic answers. Guessing quickly based on which word “looks right” is a common way to lose a game with enough information already available to solve it.
5. Do not eliminate duplicate letters too early
A letter that has not appeared in your guesses could still be repeated in the answer. A letter that appeared once as green or yellow may also appear a second time. The keyboard colors are helpful, but they do not always display the full count logic in an immediately obvious way. Keep a small written candidate pattern if a puzzle becomes difficult.
How Hard Mode changes Wordle
Hard Mode requires every subsequent guess to use revealed green and yellow information. In practice, green letters must stay in their known positions, and yellow letters must be included somewhere in each later guess. The setting changes the puzzle’s decision-making rather than making one strategy universally superior.
Hard Mode can make the game more demanding because you cannot freely play an information-only word that ignores the letters you have already discovered. It can also prevent careless guesses that throw away useful clues. In the regular mode, you have more flexibility: you may play a word that is unlikely to be the answer if it tests several important letters.
Choose Hard Mode if you enjoy working within tighter constraints. Use the standard mode if you want the option to sacrifice a possible answer guess for a broad exploratory probe.
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The NYT Games experience can include score history, statistics, leaderboards, and Wordle Bot analysis. Leaderboards let players compare daily performance with friends, while post-game analysis can help you examine how efficiently your guesses narrowed the possibilities.
Exact features can depend on the current app version, account status, and subscription context, so not every player should assume that every analytics or Games feature will appear in the same place. The app is free to download with in-app purchases, while access to the broader New York Times Games catalog and some additional features may be tied to the current subscription offering. Access terms and product labels can change.
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How Wordle sharing works
Wordle’s familiar share result is a grid of colored squares. It communicates your solving pattern without displaying the answer itself—for example, how many rows you needed and which rows contained green, yellow, or gray feedback.
If you share Wordle results, avoid posting the answer in the text, headline, image, or social preview. A dated answer or hints article should also label its date clearly and keep the solution away from places where someone could see it accidentally.
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Where can you play the official Wordle?
The official digital game is available through The New York Times Wordle page and the NYT Games app on iOS and Android. The free daily Wordle offering should be distinguished from access to the wider Games catalog, which can have different subscription or account requirements.
Unofficial archives, clones, browser extensions, and third-party apps may copy the basic five-letter, six-guess format. They should not be treated as evidence of current New York Times policies, official availability, or the behavior of the official game.
Who created Wordle?
Software engineer Josh Wardle originally made Wordle as a private game for himself and his partner, who enjoyed word puzzles. He released it publicly in October 2021, after which interest grew rapidly.
The New York Times Company acquired Wordle in January 2022 for an undisclosed amount reported at the time as being in the low seven figures. The Times said the game would remain free and that its gameplay would not change when it moved to the company’s platform. Wordle was later integrated into the wider NYT Games ecosystem alongside other word, logic, and number games.
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The licensed Hasbro Wordle: The Party Game is a separate physical product inspired by the digital puzzle. It is not required for the daily online game. Instead of a computer selecting the answer, one player becomes the Wordle Host and writes a secret five-letter word. The other players then try to solve it in six guesses or fewer.
The physical game is designed for two to four players ages 14 and up. Its dry-erase boards and markers allow repeated rounds, and Hasbro lists four play modes: classic, fast, timed, and teams. Players compete for the lowest score, making it a better fit for group play than the solitary daily format.
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If you want to take the puzzle to a family gathering or game night, a Wordle board game is the natural physical counterpart. It is an optional offline adaptation, not an upgrade or access requirement for official digital Wordle.
Common Wordle mistakes
- Reading yellow as green: Yellow confirms the letter but rules out that position.
- Ignoring letter counts: A gray duplicate does not necessarily mean that every copy of the letter is absent.
- Repeating gray letters without a plan: In normal mode, this usually wastes a row unless you are deliberately checking a count or correcting an assumption.
- Opening with an obscure word: Unusual letters can be useful, but an unfamiliar word is not automatically informative or likely to be accepted.
- Guessing before checking the pattern: Confirm every green, yellow, gray, and duplicate-letter constraint first.
- Confusing unofficial versions with the official game: A clone or archive can use similar rules without being operated by The New York Times.
- Spoiling the answer: Keep answers out of headlines, thumbnails, social previews, and unmarked text.
Wordle in one sentence
Wordle is a daily six-guess deduction puzzle: use green tiles as fixed positions, yellow tiles as misplaced letters, gray tiles as carefully counted exclusions, and each new guess to shrink the set of possible five-letter answers.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Wordle?
Wordle is a daily five-letter word puzzle. You have six guesses to identify the hidden answer, using green, yellow, and gray feedback to narrow the possibilities.
What do the Wordle colors mean?
Green means the letter is correct and in the correct position. Yellow means the letter appears in the answer but is in the wrong position. Gray generally means the letter is absent, although duplicate-letter counts can make gray feedback more complicated.
Can every accepted Wordle guess be the answer?
No. Wordle accepts a broader list of guesses than the smaller, curated list used for daily answers. A word being accepted does not prove it can be the solution.
What is the best first word in Wordle?
Use a word that tests several common letters and useful vowels, preferably without unnecessary repeated letters. There is no single best opening word for every player because information gain, immediate-solve odds, consistency, and familiarity are different goals.
What is Wordle Hard Mode?
Hard Mode requires later guesses to use discovered green and yellow information. It creates tighter constraints, but it also prevents flexible information-only guesses that test new letters without using all known clues.
Is the Wordle board game the same as digital Wordle?
No. Hasbro’s Wordle: The Party Game is a separate licensed physical game. One player writes the secret word and others solve it using dry-erase boards; it is optional and is not needed to play the official digital daily puzzle.
The Bottom Line
To improve at Wordle, focus less on guessing a lucky word and more on managing information: begin with several useful, non-repeated letters, preserve greens, move yellows, track duplicate counts, and switch to candidate confirmation when the answer set becomes small.
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