What is Wordle? In the latter days of 2021, we were exposed to a new type of tweet: Green, yellow, and grey boxes are organized in a 5-by-6-row grid. The tweets also include some statistics that are indecipherable to outsiders and a quirky little non-word: Wordle.
Perhaps you’ve already asked Google about it. It’s simple to figure out what Wordle is and then understand the grids and numbers that people have been tweeting. Perhaps you’ve been playing incessantly for months.
But you also want to know why right? It’s one thing to read that Spider-Man: No Way Home is a massive love letter to fans, but it’s quite another to witness the film’s unexpected and genuinely satisfying twists and turns for yourself.
So, what is it about Wordle that has gotten so many people talking about it in public places?
What is Wordle?
Yes, I merely mentioned it was a simple question to answer. But, in the interest of completeness, let us begin with the fundamentals.
Wordle is a daily word game invented by Josh Wardle, a Brooklyn-based software programmer with a reputation for creating innovative social experiments. Every day, internet users are met with a new word puzzle that can only be solved — or not! — by following a succession of process-of-elimination hints.
What is Wordle? – How does Wordle work? How do you do Wordle?
When you enter the Wordle website, you are welcomed by a 5-wide by a 6-long grid of empty, white boxes. Because each box can only store one letter, you guess the solution by inputting a five-letter word and clicking ‘Enter.’
Because there are no hints, any five-letter word will suffice as a first guess.
That is where the Wordle game begins. The colour of each letter’s box changes as you send a guess.
• If it turns green, it means the letter is in the daily word and you’ve inserted it correctly.
• If it becomes yellow, the letter is in the word but is in the incorrect location.
• If the box goes grey, it indicates that the letter isn’t in the word at all.
For first-time visitors, the website provides a simple explanatory visual that sets everything out simply.
What is Wordle? – How do you start Wordle? Best starting words?
We offer some suggestions to help you find the ideal opportunity. Some of these suggestions include using a word with at least two different vowels as well as a few frequent consonants like S, T, R, or N.
What is Wordle? – Why is Wordle such a big deal?
Wordle has been accessible as a daily word game that anybody online can play for free since October 2021. It just recently erupted, after Wardle announced the inclusion of a “Share” option in mid-December, which allows you to easily submit your daily performance online.
The platform-agnostic functionality is not linked to any social platform.
Instead, it saves the grid we’ve been seeing on Twitter as emojis to your device’s clipboard. The copied content may then be pasted into a post for your favourite social media feed.
(If you have the technical expertise, I would suggest putting your results text somewhere neutral, screenshotting it, and publishing that instead.
This allows you to include explanatory alt language for folks who are unable to read a message immediately from the screen.)
That explains why there was suddenly a lot more chatter about Wordle in the last weeks of 2021: Wardle made it simple for folks to bring their brags to their favourite internet water cooler.
But there’s also the more fundamental question of why people are gravitating to this thing in the first place.
It’s honestly greatest — and simplest — if you try it yourself. Wordle is free to play; simply go to the website, make your predictions, and that’s all for the day. Then you can determine whether it’s something you wish to do regularly.
Wordle’s success, in my opinion, falls between the New York Times crossword puzzle and Wheel of Fortune. The secret word varies every day, but it’s the same for everyone every day – so it’s an experience that every player shares, even if they take various paths to get the same solution. And because the problem is confined to only one five-letter phrase, it resembles Wheel’s broad “everyone can do it” appeal.
Then there’s the great sharing tool, which employs generic coloured box emoji to let users boast about their Wordle victories. When you share one of those indecipherable-to-outsiders grids on social media, you’re telling every follower indirectly, “Hey, I play this as well. We’re all in on this great internet thing. Let us discuss it.”
What is Wordle? – Is there a Wordle app for Android or iOS? Is Wordle free?
When I initially discovered Wordle’s existence, my immediate thought was to open an app store and look for it. Surely, I reasoned, this enormously popular thing on Twitter was linked to some type of app.
If you look for “Wordle” on the iOS App Store or Google Play Store, don’t confuse it with the genuine thing.
Wordle, the original one created by Josh Wardle and generously released to the internet in late 2021, now only exists as a browser game that resides right here.
If you play it anyplace else, it’s a blatant knock-off attempting to cash in on someone else’s success. Yes, it is still free.
Who made Wordle? Where did Wordle come from?
Wordle’s meteoric rise near the end of 2021 sparked a media frenzy centred on its founder. Wardle created the game in 2021 as a private exercise for himself and his word-game-obsessed girlfriend.
It ultimately became a part of their family’s WhatsApp conversation, and Wardle began to feel he had something remarkable enough to warrant a broader distribution.
Wardle’s and his latest creation’s extremely beautiful genesis story is completely recounted in this fantastic NYT piece.
You should read it for the entire scoop, but for now, know that Wordle was created by a kind individual who wished to keep his partner engaged during the silent, tough moments of our ongoing worldwide epidemic.
What is Wordle? – Tips and Tricks for Wordle
My first significant recommendation is to avoid making the same error I did: The pop-up window you see the first time you visit the site is a pre-programmed lesson, not a hint for the day’s puzzle!
It’s clearer on a PC monitor than it was on the smartphone browser I was using at the time, so that’s unlikely to be a typical blunder.
But I did it, so you might be able to as well.
More useful hints: It’s not obvious until you play a few times, but you may have words that utilise the same letter in many places.
So, if the word of the day was “APPLE,” and your initial guess was “PAPER,” the first “P” would earn a yellow box for having the proper letter in the incorrect position, but the second “P” would get a green box for being correctly selected AND put.
You may also change certain settings by clicking the gear icon at the top of the Wordle page. For those who don’t like the eye-searing intensity of a mostly-white screen, there’s a Dark Theme option.
A “Hard Mode” setting necessitates that all subsequent guesses account for provided hints.
(Using our earlier “APPLE” example as an example, any guess following “PAPER” would have to utilise “A,” “E,” and two letters “P,” with one of the always plugged into the third box.) Finally, for those who require or like it, there is a “Color Blind Mode” that employs high-contrast colours.
Some individuals have been quite interested in examining Wordle’s underlying mechanics and how it gets us to experiment with the (English) language.
Others have taken Wardle’s original DIY feel with the game as a lesson and embraced it in their own lives.
There is, however, no “wrong” way to play. Wordle’s simplicity is its beauty.
It won’t even let you get away with entering a meaningless string of letters instead of a real word; every guess is tested against Wordle’s dictionary. If your guess isn’t an actual word, the game won’t let you proceed.
Simply give it a try and see for yourself.
Once you’ve got the bug, it’s difficult to stop going back for more.
What is Wordle? – What are the Wordle Rules?
There aren’t many rules in Wordle because it’s such a basic game.
But here it is:
• You must predict the Wordle in six attempts or less.
• Each word you input must appear on the word list. This list contains over 10,000 words, but only 2,309 (at the time of writing) are answers to a specific problem.
• A proper letter becomes green.
• A proper letter positioned incorrectly turns yellow.
• A mistyped letter turns grey.
• Letters can be used many times.
• Never use plurals as answers.
• You must demonstrate your intelligence by sharing your finished Wordle*.
* Not at all.
What is a Wordle Start Word?
In Wordle,’ start words’ are important since they help you earn a high score.
Not everyone uses one, but the underlying notion is that if you select a statistically optimal term, you will restrict the alternatives straight away.
Reams of analysis have been published about this subject (much of it by me, obviously), so before you play, check out my list of the finest Wordle start words.
What is Wordle? – How To Play Wordle — And Win
To be clear, I am not a genius. But, having played every Wordle and only lost once, I do have some advice to offer.
1. As I mentioned above, you’ll want to select one of the greatest Wordle begins words, because doing this part correctly may make or break your game.
The linked article contains a full study, but the principles are that your Wordle start word should have as many common Wordle letters as possible, including at least two vowels.
So, while AZYGY is a smart word and a solid Scrabble pick, it is not the greatest choice.
I used to start with TEARS every time since it contains an ‘A’ and an ‘E’, plus three frequent consonants in reasonable locations, but I’ve now upgraded to STARE; the same letters, but words beginning with S are significantly more common than ones ending with one, so it’s a better initial pick, at least in Wordle.
2. When you press enter, you’ll notice which letters are completely accurate or partially correct, meaning they’re in the target word but in the wrong location. I got lucky in this example game, #200 from January, because ‘T’ was accurate right away, and ‘E’ and ‘R’ were both presents in the solution.
3. Next, think of another term that has all of the letters that you’ve already stated that are accurate.
Letters can appear in a word several times, but I’d stick to a single entry for each at this point unless you have a strong reason to believe you know what the word is.
At this point, use other common letters — thus avoid Qs, Zs, Xs, and even Ks, Hs, Js, and so on. Stick to letters with a low Scrabble value and you’ll be OK.
If you want more precise advice, look at my study of every Wordle solution, where I talk about things like which letters are most prevalent in Wordle, where particular letters are more likely to appear in a word, and which combinations occur most frequently.
In the above game, I added ‘D’ and ‘I’ to the ‘T’, ‘E’, and ‘R’ that I already knew were in the word to produce TRIED.
4. Another success: the ‘E’ was now verified to be in the appropriate spot, as was the ‘I’ somewhere in there as well. I then used another popular letter, ‘M,’ to spell TIMER.
5. Not quite correct, but close. With only a few options remaining, I picked TIGER…
6. And, yes, in 4/6 moves. Which appears to be about average.
What is Wordle? Why Does Wordle Sometimes Have Two Answers?
Wordle periodically confuses many players by offering up two separate Wordle solutions, which means that some individuals get one solution while everyone else gets another.
This is clearly not a purposeful action. However, it is infuriating.
The problem stems from the way Wordle was designed. The game is purely browser-based, and the word list that controls what you see on any given day is available in the site’s source code.
Depending on the day your device is used, each puzzle displays in turn. So, hypothetically, you could set your computer’s clock to tomorrow and answer tomorrow’s problem a day early. (Of course, you shouldn’t do that.)
As a result, when the New York Times changes or eliminates a term — as it has done several times — anyone using an outdated word list will get a different response than everyone else.
The only way you’d see an outdated list is if you hadn’t updated your browser in a while, which many people do.
What is Wordle? – Wordle Clones
Yes, there are – in fact, there has been a Cambrian-like surge in Wordle clones in recent months.
We’ve compiled a list of our favourites in our greatest Wordle replacements and clones post, but we also like Quordle (which allows you to play four games at once), Squabble (which allows you to play against other people online), Waffle (which mixes Wordle with a crossword puzzle), and Hurdle (which makes you play five games in a row).
Do you want more? Try Worldle (a geography-based clone), Heardle (Wordle but with music), Framed (Wordle but with movies), or Redactle (in which you have to uncover a redacted Wikipedia page).
While you wait for the next Wordle problem, you will not be bored.
What is Wordle? – Why is Wordle so Addictive?
Wordle isn’t all that different from the many other word games available on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, but it takes a different approach to you, your time, and your money.
I play a lot of word games, and most of them are destroyed by excessive advertising and continuous exhortations (if not extortions) to spend money on in-app purchases. Are you out of lives? Continue to play!
This opportunity to win again can be purchased for only £2.99! Oh no, but don’t worry, you receive a free sticker!
Wordle, on the other hand, is not like that. It doesn’t want to earn money from you, and it doesn’t want you to play for hours on end.
“I am wary of smartphone applications that demand your attention and send you push alerts in order to gain more of your attention,” Wardle told the BBC.
That’s another thing that’s refreshing about it. Binge culture is extremely real, and I, like most others, will complete a Netflix programme or a game in extended spurts over a day or two, usually when I should be sleeping.
I can’t do that with Wordle because one problem a day is so infrequent, but it keeps the game new.
Of course, the relocation to the New York Times has caused some to worry that it would lose its uniqueness, but thus far, such concerns appear to be baseless.
Will I still be playing Wordle in a year’s time? Maybe not, but I haven’t gotten my fill yet.
What is Wordle? – Can you Cheat at Wordle?
You certainly can. However, you should not.
If you want to fool yourself and your unfortunate social media pals, open Wordle in an incognito browser window, take as many guesses as you need to finish it, then return to the window that’s logged in to your profile and input the proper word.
You might also look up today’s Wordle answer and pass it off as your own.
You nailed it with just one guess. Aren’t you intelligent?
What is Wordle FAQs
What is Wordle? – Is Wordle a free app?
Instead, it’s included in The New York Times Crossword app, which is accessible for both Android and iOS. This current app now includes Wordle with the service’s other games, however unlike the other titles, Wordle remains free.
What is Wordle? – How do I get daily Wordle?
How can I obtain the Wordle game? Wordle is only accessible to play online. It may be found at www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle (opens in new tab). Every day, participants come to this website to guess the new word-of-the-day.
Can you only play Wordle once a day?
According to the same poll, just 14% confess to doing so. Wordle players have up to six attempts to guess the five-letter word of the day, with feedback provided after each attempt. If a player correctly recognises one of the letters, Wordle will highlight it in yellow.
What is Wordle?- Why can’t I find Wordle in my app store?
Apple acts quickly to remove popular word game rip-offs. Wordle, a simple word game, has taken the world by storm in the last few months. It’s so easy that it’s not an app, but rather a website.
What was the Wordle yesterday?
SLOTH is the Wordle answer from yesterday. That’s the solution to yesterday’s Wordle.
What is Wordle Conclusion
Wordle is a wonderful application, and the game’s engaging and competitive character is easy to comprehend.
Wordle’s functionality is similarly quite restricted, with the daily challenge providing the most of the activity. Because there aren’t many other in-app options or guidance, it might get tedious or tedious.
