Wordle is sticking around. Here's everything to know.

April 6, 2022

Wordle has has captured the attention of millions across the globe, but what is a Wordle? Seen all those posts featuring yellow, green and gray boxes on social media? Yep, that's Wordle.

What is Wordle?

Wordle is a daily word game you can find online here. It's fun, simple and, like a crossword, can only be played once a day. Every 24 hours there's a new word of the day, and it's up to you to figure out what it is. The site itself does a fantastic job of explaining the rules:

This game is so good.

Wordle

Wordle gives players six chances to guess a randomly selected five-letter word. As shown above, if you have the right letter in the right spot, it shows up green. A correct letter in the wrong spot shows up yellow. A letter that isn't in the word in any spot shows up gray.

You can enter a total of six words, meaning you can enter five burner words from which you can learn hints about the letters and their placements. Then you get one chance to put those hints to use. Or you can try for performance and guess the word of the day in three, two or even one go.

Simple stuff, but also incredibly compelling.

So it's a word game? Big deal...

Yeah, it's just a word game. But it's super popular: Over 300,000 people play it daily, according to The New York Times. That popularity may sound perplexing, but there are a few tiny details that have resulted in everyone going absolutely bonkers for it.

There's only one puzzle per day: This creates a certain level of stakes. You only get one shot at the Wordle. If you mess up, you have to wait until tomorrow to get a brand new puzzle.

Everyone is playing the exact same puzzle: This is crucial, as it makes it easier to ping your buddy and chat about the day's puzzle. "Today's was tough!" "How did you get on?" "Did you get it?" Which takes us to the next point...

It's easy to share your results: Once you've successfully or unsuccessfully done the puzzle for the day, you're invited to share your Wordle journey for the day. If you tweet the image, it looks like this...

Note that the word and letters you chose are obscured. All that's shown is your journey toward the word in a series of yellow, green and gray boxes.

It's very compelling. If you get it easily, maybe in the second or third try, there's a gloating element whereby you must show your followers how smart you are and share.

If you get it by the skin of your teeth in the sixth go, that's also a cool story. But most importantly, the puzzle itself isn't spoiled.

So Wordle isn't just a word game, it's a conversation starter and a chance to show off on social media. That's why it's going viral.

Tips and tricks

If you're a word game purist, you may want to avoid the following tips and rely entirely on your own instincts. For everyone else who's sick of seeing gray boxes, here are some tips that you may find helpful.

Choosing your first word: The first word is arguably the most important. To maximize the value of your opening gambit, choose a word with three vowels and five different letters. Some examples: orate, media, radio. I always use "adieu" for some reason. It's a habit and I'm refusing to break it.

I just finished reading a fascinating piece by Tyler Glaiel, a programmer and game designer who tried to figure out the best possible starting word. Apparently we should all be kicking off Wordle with the word "roate." Honestly, read this whole article, it's great.

Avoid reusing grays: There's a keyboard at the bottom of the Wordle board that shows what letters are green, yellow and gray. Avoid reusing letters that have come up gray. Yes, this sounds obvious. But it can take time and effort to think of five-letter words that don't use letters you've already tried. That effort will pay off.

Letters can appear twice: This complicates matters, especially when you're running out of letters to try on word four or five. But letters often recur, as with words like chill, sissy and ferry having been the correct answers in the past.

WORDLE, WORDLE EVERYWHERE

Who made Wordle?

Wordle is the work of software engineer Josh Wardle, who originally created the game for his partner, a fan of word games, and tells the BBC it will never become laden with ads. Extremely online people may remember Wardle as the creator of Place, an utterly wild collaborative art project/social experiment that sent the internet into a tizzy in April 2017.

Place was a shared online space that allowed literally anyone to fight over what was drawn there. It resulted in huge, sprawling communities battling over space on this gigantic online canvas.

It ultimately ended up looking like this:

Remember Place? That was a wild time.

Wordle got a mention in The New York Times in November, but really got traction when the share element got added.

In a Reddit post, Wardle said he wanted Wordle to feel like a croissant, a "delightful snack" that's enjoyed occasionally. This is explicitly why there's only one puzzle per day. "Enjoyed too often," he explained, "and they lose their charm," Wardle says.

Agreed.

New York Times acquisition

At the end of January, creator Josh Wardle sold Wordle to the New York Times for a figure "in the low seven figures."

Wardle noted that his "game has gotten bigger than I ever imagined" and added he's "just one person."

The game will ultimately become part of New York Times subscription puzzle service, but Wardle made sure that Wordle would remain free-to-play and that current streaks would be preserved in the move.

"It is important to me that, as Wordle grows, it continues to provide a great experience to everyone," Wardle said. "Given this, I am incredibly pleased to announce that I've reached an agreement with The New York Times for them to take over running Wordle going forward."

Wordle hasn't gotten harder since joining the New York Times

It just hasn't! Come on folks!

According to The New York Times: "Nothing has changed about the game play," the Times' communications director, Jordan Cohen, said to CNET in an email.

If you check out the game's script you can see that the New York Times hasn't made any significant changes to the game.

Wordle clones...

Since the success of Wordle, there's been clones. Lots of clones. Some have been cynical cash grabs, but a huge amount of them are unique, interesting alternatives.

Worldle invites you to guess countries based on their outline.
Squabble is a multiplayer, Battle Royale version of Wordle.
Dordle forces you to solve two Wordles at once.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Here's a fairly comprehensive list of word games you can check out if you get tired of the original.

First published on Dec. 20, 2021 at 5:15 p.m. PT.

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Internet Culture Culture

Wordle Tips and Tricks: The Best Start Words and More

Struggling with Wordle? We can help...

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

March 28, 2022 1:09 p.m. PT

The Wordle train keeps on wordling.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Wordle can be tricky, but we're here to help. Start words are key: "ADIEU" is popular, since it includes four vowels, though game designer Tyler Glaiel suggests the mathematically optimal first guess is "ROATE," which isn't a word I'd heard of (Merriam-Webster informs me it's an obsolete spelling of "rote").

On the day that the wordle answer is ‘adieu’ social media will implode
— vasili (@mockdownblues) January 20, 2022

I understand the argument that there are only five vowels (and sometimes Y), so you don't need to figure those out immediately. But eh, what can I say, I like to know the vowels, it helps me narrow down my options. I've started with ADIEU, but these days I also like to start with REGAL, just to get the E and A information known, and to see if my fave consonants are involved. AISLE is also a favorite for me, using three vowels and two favorite consonants.

And check out this CNET TikTok, which recommends starting with ADIEU and then throwing in STORY. It's a great one-two punch that covers a lot of popular letters. The very first time I tried it out, I was able to use the letter info I gained from those guesses to get the word easily on my third attempt.

I asked Wordle creator Josh Wardle to share his techniques -- I haven't heard back yet, but if he responds, I'll definitely share. In the meantime, I asked CNET staffers to share their Wordle strategies and favorite starter words. Hope it gives you a BOOST or maybe a NUDGE.

Big AUDIO dynamite

"AUDIO. Get 4 out of 5 vowels out of the way immediately and focus on narrowing down consonants. Don't be afraid to deviate from your regular starter word, though -- sometimes a random word that pops into your head ends up being way more intuitive than you could have ever imagined." --Ashley Esqueda

A blank STARE

"My go-to is STARE. I'm inspired a little by the Wheel of Fortune move of guessing RSTLNE first, and with this, I also knock off two vowels. At the very least, this often seems to give me something on the board early." --Eli Blumenthal

Get TEARY

"I cycle through TEARY, PIOUS and ADIEU as a first word, to knock out some common letters and make inroads with vowels. I then choose my next word based on the results, though sometimes I just throw up my hands and use both TEARY and PIOUS one after the other no matter what." --Amanda Kooser

MAKER's mark

"MAKER. That word puts me in the mood to 'create' the answer based on the data I get from knocking out the above letter combo. Then I move on to animal names like TIGER. It's not so much tactical as it is about just having fun for five or so minutes." --Mike Sorrentino

Use weird words

"You aren't playing Wordle correctly if you use the same word to start every day. That's my official rule and I'm flabbergasted y'all use the same word each day. What? Use weird words. Grab a dictionary, close your eyes and flick to a random page. Start with YACHT one day, try ULCER the next. Look around the room! TOAST? Why not? Just do it! Come on, people. It's not about clearing each day in the least amount of moves, it's about learning to love yourself." --Jackson Ryan

CHEAT, and try the NYT Spelling Bee

"I've been playing around with using FIRST, MANIC or CHEAT to start with. I don't know if that says more about my frame of mind than my word solving skills, but this approach has pretty much led to me solving within three words. (I got PANIC the other day in two!) But I have to say that while I enjoy Wordle, I'm still a bigger fan of the NYT's Spelling Bee, where you're asked to create words using seven letters, and each word has to use the letter at the center of the puzzle. I play Spelling Bee with my husband (he gets half the points to Genius; I get the other half). With Wordle, we play against each other to see who can solve faster. So Spelling Bee just seems nicer." --Connie Guglielmo

Wheel good plan

"First, I make sure to do it before my morning coffee, for an added layer of difficulty. I don't have a go-to word, since that feels sorta cheap, but I do generally aim for initial words that are high in either vowel count or the good old-fashioned Wheel of Fortune letters: RSTLNE. If it works for Pat Sajak's crew, it's good enough for me." --Andrew Krok

MORE ON WORDLE

An argument for ADIEU

"I've been using ADIEU from day one. Hilariously, I still sometimes misspell it. Sometimes to shake things up -- mostly based on pressure from Jackson Ryan -- I'll try something different. But every time I stray from ADIEU, it manifests into a gigantic uphill struggle I barely recover from. Either way, I dunno what we're all arguing about. Someone did an experiment on this. The best word is ROATE." --Mark Serrels

STORY time

"I steal Mark's word, ADIEU, and follow it up with STORY. Then it's just a matter of putting all the letters I uncovered into the spots I think they're in, and banging my head on the table, saying, 'I'm not this stupid, am I?' until I figure it out." --Oscar Gonzalez

The first word you think of

"I'm a high-risk, high-reward Wordle player. I truly pick the first word that pops into my mind, with absolutely no strategy whatsoever. Aside from this being the purest form of Wordling (as the experts say, obviously), when I'm lucky enough to accidentally guess three or four of five letters correctly, it's immensely satisfying." --Monisha Ravisetti

Not easy being green

"TREAD is a winner, but I like to mix up my first word. That said, I always have a few first-guess rules. At least two vowels. Never use an S. (That S guess will come in handy down the track when you realize you're incredibly dim-witted and you can only think of four-letter guesses. Final rule: Your second guess should never include your greens from guess one (unless you're on hard mode). Save those greens for later and throw five new letter guesses into the mix. If I see you post a Wordle answer on Twitter that has tall green columns of letters staying in the same place, I will judge you." --Claire Reilly

Guess it in two

"My ultimate goal in Wordle is to guess the word by my second try. To that end, I use STEAR as my first word, which provides a solid set of letters in unusual positions -- so I can often predict where they'll go if they turn up yellow. From there, I make aggressive guesses, even if they're strategically inadvisable (duplicate letters, few vowels, low-likelihood letters, etc.). Since starting this strategy, my average is about the same as ever, but now I occasionally win in two guesses. So, success?" --David Priest

Don't fail

"I don't believe in strategies. Pick the word that speaks to you most in the morning and follow your heart. Starting with a tactically effective word makes it too easy anyway. So what if you fail? It's just Wordle! (But I would like to make it clear that I never fail, not even when there's an X in the word.)" --Sarah McDermott

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