About

Wordle is the word puzzle phenomenon that took over the internet in late 2021. Each day there's one 5-letter word to guess. You have six tries. After each guess, letters turn green (right letter, right position), yellow (right letter, wrong position), or gray (letter not in the word). The entire world plays the same word each day.

The elegance of Wordle is that it's both simple enough for anyone to play and deep enough to spark genuine debate about optimal starting words and strategies. Each guess is a balance between testing new letters and leveraging information already gathered. Poor word choices early can waste limited guesses on low-information letters.

The shared experience is part of the magic. The emoji-grid results that flooded social media became a cultural phenomenon. Playing Wordle is a daily ritual for millions — a 5-minute puzzle that feels communal even when played alone.

How to Play

• Type any valid 5-letter word as your first guess and press Enter.
• Green tiles: correct letter in the correct position.
• Yellow tiles: correct letter but in the wrong position.
• Gray tiles: letter not in the word at all.
• Use the feedback to narrow down the word in 6 guesses or fewer.

Tips

• Start with words containing common letters: CRANE, SLATE, AUDIO, or RAISE are popular openers.
• Yellow letters are in the word — use them in different positions next guess.
• After two guesses, shift to a word that tests entirely new letters to maximize information.

History

Wordle was created by Josh Wardle (the name is a play on his surname) as a gift for his partner, who loves word games. He shared it publicly in October 2021, and it grew from 90 players to 300,000 in just two months. The New York Times purchased it in January 2022 for an undisclosed sum in the low seven figures. The game inspired hundreds of variants and spawned a new micro-genre of daily word puzzles that continues to grow.