Play Word Guess
Five letters, six tries, and a colour clue after every guess.
Streak
0
Best
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Controls
- Type letters, Enter to submit
- Backspace to delete
- Or use the on-screen keyboard
About Word Guess
The five-letter guessing game needs no introduction after 2022, when a version built for one person to play with his partner turned into a daily ritual for millions. The design is close to perfect: six guesses is exactly enough to reward good reasoning without making failure feel arbitrary.
The interesting part is information theory. Your first guess should not be the word you think it is — it should be the word that splits the remaining possibilities most evenly. That is why openers like SLATE and CRANE outperform a hunch: they test five high-frequency letters at once and eliminate the largest share of candidates whatever the result.
Duplicate letters are where implementations usually go wrong, and where players usually get confused. If the answer holds one E and your guess holds two, exactly one of yours comes back coloured and the other is grey — the marking is done in two passes so an exact match is never double-counted as a misplaced one.
Play as many rounds as you like; the answer is drawn fresh each time from a list of several hundred common words. Your score is the streak of consecutive solves, and it banks the moment you win a round.
Tips for a higher score
- Open with a word rich in vowels and common consonants — SLATE, CRANE and AUDIO are all strong.
- Spend your second guess on five completely new letters rather than rearranging the first.
- Yellow tiles are worth more than green ones early. They tell you a letter is in the word and rule out a position at the same time.
- Watch for double letters. If two of the same letter come back one yellow and one grey, the word contains exactly one of them.
- By guess four, stop exploring and commit to a word that fits every clue you already have.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best opening word?
Anything covering five common letters. SLATE, CRANE, AUDIO and RAISE are all excellent, and the difference between them is small compared with the difference between any of them and a random guess.
Why was my guess rejected?
It is not in the accepted word list. The list is deliberately limited to common English words so you never lose to something obscure.
How are duplicate letters marked?
Exact matches are marked first, then remaining letters are matched against what is left. So a guess with two of a letter, against an answer with one, gets one colour and one grey.
Is there a new word every day?
No — this one is unlimited. A new word is picked every round so you can keep playing.