How to Play Wordle: Rules, Starting Words and Examples

Wordle is the daily five-letter word game from The New York Times, and you can learn it in a minute: guess a hidden five-letter word in six tries, using the color feedback after each guess to close in. Everyone plays the same word each day. For today's clues and the solution, see TECHi's Wordle hints and answer page — this guide covers how the game works and how to win more often.

What is Wordle?

Wordle was built by software engineer Josh Wardle in 2021 and bought by The New York Times in early 2022. A new puzzle unlocks at midnight your local time, and there's exactly one word for everyone — which is why streaks and shareable emoji grids became part of the culture. Your only goal is to find the word in as few of your six guesses as possible.

How the colors work

After every guess, each tile changes color to tell you how close you are:

• 🟩 Green — the letter is correct and in the right position.
• 🟨 Yellow — the letter is in the word, but in a different position.
• ⬛ Gray — that occurrence is not needed. Another green or yellow copy means the answer still contains the letter.

Guesses must be real five-letter words from the game's dictionary. Hard mode (optional, in settings) makes the game stricter: once a letter turns green or yellow, you must reuse it in every later guess.

Starting-word examples

A strong opener tests as many common letters as possible. Examples of balanced starters load up on frequent consonants (S, T, R, N, L) and the common vowels (A, E):

• SLATE, CRANE, TRACE, CRATE — useful balanced openers; each pairs three common consonants with two of the most common vowels.
• SLANT, ROAST, STARE, LEAST — strong follow-ups that cover letters your first guess missed.
• AUDIO, ADIEU, OUIJA — vowel-heavy openers if you'd rather lock the vowels down first; they're weaker on consonants, so pair them with a consonant-heavy second guess.

Choose the next guess from your feedback. Testing new letters can help, but take a clear solution when available. Hard mode requires revealed letters to be reused.

Strategy that actually lowers your average

• Start with common letters, then decide whether the feedback supports a solution or another exploratory guess.
• Avoid letters ruled out entirely. A gray duplicate does not cancel another green or yellow copy.
• Watch for double letters (like the three Es in GEESE (positions 2, 3, and 5)). Yellow and green counts can mislead you until you deliberately test a repeat.
• From guess 4 on, switch from discovery to locking positions: start arranging the letters you already know into valid words.
• Stuck? List the green and yellow letters you have and work through the missing vowel — it's usually the gap.

A few quick facts

Wordle is free to play on the NYT site and app, with one puzzle per day. Answers can recur: NYT’s dated feeds list CIGAR on both June 19, 2021 and February 2, 2026. Use past-answer lists as history rather than an absolute exclusion list. The official Wordle archive offers past puzzles to eligible NYT Games subscribers.

Today's clues live on the Wordle hints and answer page, and you can catch up on the previous day's answer any time.