Rules · 1 player

How to play Word of the Day

Work out the day's five-letter word in six guesses or fewer.

The rules, step by step

1. 1

   Type any real five-letter word and press enter to submit it.

2. 2

   A green tile means that letter is correct and in the right place.

3. 3

   A yellow tile means the letter is in the word, but somewhere else.

4. 4

   A grey tile means the letter does not appear in the word at all.

5. 5

   Everybody in the world gets the same word each day, and a new one arrives at midnight.

Three tips that change how you play

• Open with a word packed with common letters — something like CRANE or SLATE tells you a lot in one go.
• Use your second guess to test five letters you have not tried yet, rather than shuffling the ones you already know.
• Watch for repeated letters. A word with two of the same letter catches almost everybody out at least once.

Working a guess through

Open with SLATE. Say the S comes back yellow, the A comes back green in position three, and L, T and E are grey. You now know the word has an S somewhere other than the first position, an A as its third letter, and none of L, T or E. That rules out a very large share of five-letter words in one move. A good follow-up tests new letters while respecting what you know — something like CHASM, which keeps the A in third place, moves the S, and introduces C, H and M. Two guesses in, you often have three confirmed letters and a short list of candidates, which is exactly where you want to be with four guesses in hand.

Three mistakes that cost beginners the game

Spending the second guess rearranging the letters you already found.

With five guesses left you can afford to gather information instead. A second word made entirely of untested common letters usually narrows the answer further than a speculative rearrangement of the first.

Forgetting that letters can repeat.

A grey tile means that letter is not in the word at all — but a word can still contain two of a letter you have only seen once. When you are stuck with four known letters, a double is very often the reason.

Opening with a word full of unusual letters.

An opener built from rare letters usually returns five greys, which tells you almost nothing. Lead with common consonants and two vowels so most outcomes eliminate a large share of the dictionary.

Common questions about Word of the Day