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To play Wordle, the daily word-guessing game, enter a valid five-letter word and submit it. You have six attempts to find the hidden answer. After each guess, green, yellow, and gray tiles show which letters and positions are correct, so each turn helps narrow the answer rather than serving only as a final guess.
The official Wordle is the New York Times version created by Josh Wardle. The game is simple to start, but solving it consistently depends on reading feedback accurately, handling repeated letters, and choosing guesses that provide useful information.
Key takeaways
- Official Wordle uses a hidden five-letter answer and gives you six guesses to solve it.
- Green means a letter is correct and correctly placed; yellow means the letter is present but misplaced; gray generally means the letter is not available.
- Your first guess should gather information by testing several useful letters, not simply attempt to guess the answer immediately.
- Green letters stay fixed, yellow letters must move to untested positions, and gray letters should usually be excluded.
- Hard mode requires you to reuse revealed green and yellow information in later guesses, making the puzzle more constrained.
How do you play Wordle, the daily word-guessing game?
To play Wordle, the daily word-guessing game, enter a valid five-letter word and submit it. You have six attempts to find the hidden answer. After each guess, green, yellow, and gray tiles show which letters and positions are correct, so each turn helps narrow the answer rather than serving only as a final guess.
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The official Wordle was created by Josh Wardle and is presented by The New York Times. You can play it through the New York Times Games website or the official NYT Games app listing. The official Android listing describes Wordle as a five-letter puzzle that can be solved in six tries or fewer and distinguishes the included game from similarly named third-party apps.
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What are the rules of Wordle?
Wordle has three rules that determine every round:
- The hidden answer is a five-letter word.
- You can submit up to six guesses.
- Each guess must be accepted by the game as a valid word.
The goal is to identify the answer in six guesses or fewer. You do not need to solve the puzzle on your first or second turn: early guesses are information-gathering moves that reveal letters and eliminate possibilities.
| Tile color | What it means | What to do next |
|---|---|---|
| Green | The letter is in the answer and in the correct position. | Keep the letter in that exact position. |
| Yellow | The letter is in the answer but in a different position. | Use the letter again in a position you have not ruled out. |
| Gray | The letter is generally not in the answer. | Usually remove the letter from later guesses, while checking for the repeated-letter exception. |
The New York Times-published instructional material describes Wordle’s six-try structure and color feedback in more detail in this republished Wordle tips article.
What do green, yellow, and gray tiles mean?
A green tile confirms both the letter and its position. For example, if the third tile is green and contains A, the answer has A in position three.
A yellow tile confirms that the answer contains the letter, but not in the position where you played it. If A is yellow in position three, try A in another position instead of repeating A in position three.
A gray tile usually means that the letter does not occur in the answer. Gray feedback becomes more complicated when your guess contains a repeated letter, because the answer may contain fewer copies than your guess.
How do repeated letters work?
Wordle scores repeated letters according to how many copies the answer can support. Suppose your guess contains two copies of the same letter, but the hidden answer contains only one. One tile may be green or yellow while the other copy is gray. The gray duplicate does not necessarily mean that the letter is absent altogether; it can mean that you have already accounted for the answer’s available copy.
For that reason, do not treat every gray tile as an unconditional statement that no copy of that letter exists. Read repeated-letter feedback together with the green and yellow tiles from the same guess.
What should your first Wordle guess do?
Your first Wordle guess should test several useful letters, preferably with a practical mix of common vowels and consonants. The first guess is valuable because it separates possible answers, even when the guessed word is not likely to be the final answer.
There is no officially required starting word and no opening word that guarantees a win. Avoid presenting a favorite opener as universally best. A word with many repeated letters often provides less information than a word that tests several different letters, although the best choice depends on the player’s vocabulary and preferred strategy.
How should you use Wordle feedback on each turn?
1. Make an information-rich opening guess
Choose an accepted five-letter word that tests several letters you expect to be useful. Do not spend the first turn trying to predict the answer from a clue or theme: the normal daily puzzle is a deduction problem, not a trivia question.
2. Fix green letters and move yellow letters
After the first result, lock every green letter into place. Keep every yellow letter in your candidate pool, but move each yellow letter to a position that has not already been rejected. Do not automatically repeat a yellow letter in the same position.
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Remove gray letters from later guesses when the feedback shows that the letter is unavailable. If a repeated letter produced mixed colors, account for the confirmed number of copies before eliminating the letter completely.
4. Use a second guess to test fresh letters
If the opening guess revealed little, use the second guess to test several fresh, common letters rather than repeating unconfirmed letters. If the opening guess revealed a promising pattern, build the second guess around that pattern while preserving all confirmed information.
5. Narrow the pattern instead of brainstorming randomly
By the middle turns, keep a mental or written pattern of known positions and excluded letters. Consider every legal position for each yellow letter. A candidate must satisfy all green positions, contain every required yellow letter in a permitted position, and avoid letters ruled out by the feedback.
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6. Probe when multiple answers remain
When two or more likely answers remain, use a deliberate probe guess that distinguishes between them. Testing a consonant that appears in one candidate but not another can provide more useful information than immediately choosing one candidate and risking a wasted turn. Research on Wordle treats this kind of play as an information and search problem, although mathematical strategies are not official New York Times recommendations; see research on optimal strategies for Wordle and general guessing games.
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7. Protect the final guesses
Once the pattern is narrow, avoid speculative words that conflict with known feedback. Before submitting, check the spelling, the placement of every green letter, the position of every yellow letter, and the possibility of repeated letters. A normal-mode guess may technically omit a known yellow letter, but doing so generally throws away useful information.
What is the difference between normal mode and hard mode?
Normal mode gives you more freedom to test letters. Hard mode requires subsequent guesses to use revealed information: green letters must remain in their known positions, and yellow letters must appear somewhere in the next guess.
| Feature | Normal mode | Hard mode |
|---|---|---|
| Green letters | You can keep them in place or, depending on the accepted guess, choose a word that does not use them. | You must keep each revealed green letter in its known position. |
| Yellow letters | You may submit a guess that omits a known yellow letter, although that wastes information. | You must include each revealed yellow letter in a later guess. |
| Fresh-letter testing | You have more freedom to test unrelated letters. | Testing unrelated letters is more restricted. |
| Difficulty | More flexible for beginners. | More disciplined, but some puzzles become harder because fewer probe guesses are available. |
Hard-mode labels and controls can change with the product interface, so verify the current setting before describing a particular button or menu path. A current gameplay explainer describes the practical distinction between ordinary play and hard mode in its Wordle guide. Hard mode is optional; it is not the standard requirement for solving the daily puzzle.
Where can you play the official Wordle?
The official Wordle is available through the New York Times Games website and the New York Times Games mobile app. When choosing an app, check the publisher. The official Android listing is published by The New York Times Company, while the separate “Wordle!” listing from Lion Studios Plus includes advertising, in-app purchases, unlimited play, and alternative modes; that separate listing is not the official NYT daily game.
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Are Wordle statistics, streaks, and old puzzles available?
The New York Times Games experience can track Wordle progress such as solved puzzles, streaks, average performance, and other statistics. The official Games Help Center also describes Wordle score tracking and friend leaderboards in the app; these features motivate comparison but do not change the six-guess rule.
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- Head-to-Head 2-Player Word Duel – Challenge a friend or partner in a battle of wits. Boardle is a 2-player board game where each player takes turns secretly writing a 5-letter word while their partner deciphers the other’s word through strategic guesses. It’s perfect for couples’ game nights or a quick round of competitive fun with a buddy.
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The current app description says subscribers can access a large archive of past New York Times Games puzzles, including Wordle. Subscription packaging and archive access can change, so check the NYT Games app Help Center documentation and current app wording before assuming that every old puzzle is available without a subscription.
Can you play Wordle with other people offline?
The daily online Wordle is a solo puzzle, but an optional physical adaptation is available for group play. Hasbro’s licensed Wordle: The Party Game is designed for two to four players, includes dry-erase boards and markers, offers four play modes, and is recommended for ages 14 and up. The physical game is not required to play the daily online puzzle, and this article does not make a current price or availability claim.
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Hasbro says the tabletop version was inspired by the digital game and uses the Wordle trademark under license from The New York Times Company, as described in Hasbro’s announcement about bringing Wordle to life as a board game.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What mistakes do beginners make in Wordle?
- Confusing yellow with green: Yellow confirms the letter, not its position. Move the letter instead of fixing it where it first appeared.
- Eliminating a repeated letter too aggressively: A gray duplicate can mean the answer contains fewer copies, not necessarily zero copies.
- Ignoring confirmed clues: A guess that abandons a green or yellow letter usually sacrifices valuable information. Hard mode requires those clues to be used.
- Reusing gray letters: Do not spend a turn retesting letters that the feedback has already eliminated unless repeated-letter accounting explains the apparent conflict.
- Guessing a likely answer too early: When several candidates remain, a probe word may reveal more than a risky answer attempt.
- Assuming the most common English word must be the answer: Wordle uses an editor-curated answer set, so ordinary word frequency alone does not determine the solution.
- Downloading an unofficial clone: Confirm that the publisher is The New York Times Company when you want the official mobile game.
How can you share Wordle without spoiling the answer?
Use Wordle’s built-in result-sharing format or describe your number of guesses without writing the answer. Keep the daily answer out of headings, image text, metadata, social captions, and article copy when the page is intended to help people play the current puzzle. Hints and answer pages should appear only after clear spoiler warnings.
Is Wordle a trivia game or a strategy game?
Wordle is primarily a deduction and information-management game. Knowing vocabulary helps, but the colored feedback is the central resource: each guess should either place known letters, test useful unknown letters, or distinguish among remaining candidates.
Computer-science research has examined Wordle as a search problem and the difficulty of finding winning strategies. Those findings support the practical value of information-rich and discriminating guesses, but they do not establish an official NYT-approved starting word or guarantee that a particular strategy will solve every daily puzzle. A separate paper discusses the computational complexity of finding a winning strategy in its analysis of Wordle and NP-completeness.
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How many letters are in Wordle?
The official Wordle daily target is a five-letter word.
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How many guesses do you get in Wordle?
You get six attempts to solve the official Wordle answer. The round ends without a solve if the answer is not found within those six guesses.
What does green mean in Wordle?
A green tile means the letter is in the answer and in the correct position.
What does yellow mean in Wordle?
A yellow tile means the letter is in the answer but in a different position from the one you guessed.
Is the official Wordle app free?
The official NYT Games app is listed as free to download and includes Wordle, although other app features may involve in-app purchases or subscription access. The official Android listing is published by The New York Times Company.
Can you play old Wordle puzzles?
The current NYT Games app description says subscribers can access a large archive of past New York York Times Games puzzles, including Wordle. Archive and subscription requirements can change, so check the current app or Help Center wording.
The Bottom Line
To play official Wordle well, treat each of your six guesses as evidence gathering: keep green letters fixed, move yellow letters, exclude gray letters while accounting for duplicates, and use probe guesses when several answers remain. The official daily game is the New York Times version, not every app or unlimited clone using the Wordle name.
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