Wordle’s rules fit in a sentence: guess the five-letter word in six tries, with green for a right letter in the right place, yellow for a right letter in the wrong place, and grey for a letter not in the word. Almost every argument about the game is about the edge cases. Here they are, answered.
The basic rules
- One puzzle a day, the same for everyone, resetting at local midnight.
- Six guesses. Each must be a real five-letter word from the accepted list.
- After each guess, tiles turn green (correct letter, correct position), yellow (letter is in the word, different position) or grey (letter not in the word).
- Hard mode, if enabled, forces you to reuse every green and yellow letter in later guesses.
How repeated letters are coloured
This is the rule that trips people up. Suppose the answer is ROBOT and you guess BOOST. The first O is in the wrong place and the second O is in the right place. Wordle colours the second O green and the first O yellow because the answer has two Os. If the answer had only one O, the extra O in your guess would be grey. The rule: each letter in the answer can only be “claimed” once, greens claim first, then yellows from left to right.
What can and cannot be an answer
Since the New York Times took over Wordle in 2022, an editor curates the answer list. In practice that means no simple plurals ending in S, no regular past tenses ending in ED, no proper nouns, and no obscure or offensive words. Words that merely end in S (CHESS, ABYSS) or have irregular plural forms (GEESE, TEETH) remain fair game. The guess list is far larger than the answer list, so a word being accepted as a guess tells you nothing about whether it could be the answer.
Opening words
There is no single best opener, but good ones share features: five distinct letters, several vowels, and common consonants. CRANE, SLATE, TRACE and ADIEU are popular for good reasons. What matters more than the first word is what you do with the feedback: use your second guess to test new letters rather than to chase a lucky green.
If you want more than one a day
Wordle is one puzzle a day by design. Our list of games like Wordle covers twenty alternatives, including number versions. If you are stuck on letters, the word unscrambler finds every five-letter word from a set of letters. And for whether the habit is doing you any good, read is Wordle good for your brain?
Common questions
Can Wordle answers be plural?
Simple plurals ending in S, such as BOOKS, are not used as answers under the New York Times’ editorial policy, though they are accepted as guesses. Plurals that do not end in S, such as GEESE, and words that happen to end in S, such as CHESS or GLASS, can be answers.
Can Wordle repeat letters?
Yes. Answers can contain the same letter twice or even three times (SASSY, GEESE). When you guess a repeated letter, each tile is coloured independently: one may be green or yellow while the other is grey if the answer has only one of that letter.
Can Wordle be past tense?
Regular past tenses ending in ED, such as BAKED, are avoided as answers under the same policy that excludes simple plurals. Irregular past tenses like SPENT or WROTE can appear.
Will Wordle run out of words?
Not soon. The original list held about 2,300 answers, enough for over six years from launch, and the New York Times curates and adds to it. Guesses can be any of roughly 14,000 accepted five-letter words.
Does Wordle repeat words?
Historically each answer was used once. Since the Times took over editing, past answers are avoided but not formally banned, so a repeat is possible but rare.
Can Wordle answers be proper nouns or abbreviations?
No. Answers are common English words. Proper nouns, abbreviations and offensive words are excluded.
What time does Wordle reset?
At midnight in your device’s local time zone. That is why friends in other time zones may be playing a different puzzle number for a few hours.
Why did my Wordle streak reset?
The most common causes are missing a day, playing on a different device or browser without being signed in, or clearing browser data. Signing in to a New York Times account keeps stats in sync across devices.