Wordle for Beginners: Colors, Rules, and Your First Wins

A one-minute picture of the game

Wordle is The New York Times' daily five-letter puzzle. You have six tries. After every try, tiles light up so you know what stuck, what moved, and what is gone for good.

Josh Wardle built the first version as a private gift for his partner. Public launch hit in late 2021; a few months later the player count jumped into the millions. The Times bought it in early 2022.

Two design choices made it stick: one shared puzzle each day for everyone, and a clean color grid you can post without spoiling the letters. No paywall on the core game, no mandatory login.

Rules in plain language

1. There is one secret five-letter English word.
2. You may attempt it six times.
3. Each attempt must be a real five-letter dictionary word the game accepts.
4. Every letter gets green, yellow, or grey feedback.
5. A fresh puzzle appears at local midnight.
6. Officially, you play today's board once.

Stats (wins, streak, distribution) live in browser storage. Wipe the site data and those numbers reset.

What the colors are really saying

Green — right letter, right seat. Keep it there.

Yellow — right letter, wrong seat. Bring it back somewhere else. That tile also proves the old seat was wrong.

Grey — not in the word. Leave it out forever.

Duplicates have a quirk: if you play two of a letter and the answer only has one, one tile colors and the twin goes grey. That grey means "exactly once."

A short sample solve (answer: CRIMP)

1. SLATE — all grey. Feels empty, but five frequent letters just vanished.
2. GRIND — R and I yellow; others grey. Two keepers, more dead letters.
3. PRICK — P, R, I, C yellow. Lots of material; arrangement is the job now.
4. CRIMP — full green.

Each row had a job: wipe commons, find keepers, confirm the set, then lock the order.

Where the real game lives

Play on nytimes.com/games/wordle in any browser. Free, no install required.

The NYT Games app (iOS / Android) also carries Wordle next to Spelling Bee, Connections, and the Crossword. Wordle itself stays free even without a full Games subscription.

Skip random App Store "Wordle" clones. They often inject ads, trackers, or different word lists.

Hard mode in one paragraph

Turn it on in settings before you start. From then on, every guess must include all known greens (fixed seats) and yellows (somewhere in the word). You cannot toss a scouting word that ignores confirmed letters. Share grids mark hard-mode wins with an asterisk.

Habits that help new players immediately

Open with high-frequency letters — SLATE, CRANE, or TRACE are reliable. Deeper rankings live in the Best Starting Words guide.

Respect grey. Ten greys across two guesses leave sixteen letters in play per seat — huge progress even when the board looks blank.

Relocate yellows. Leaving a yellow in the same wrong seat teaches nothing.

Never recycle greys. That slot should hunt something new.

Watch for shapes like -IGHT, -ATCH, -OUND, -ANCE. Spotting a family early skips a lot of letter-by-letter grinding. More on that in the Wordle Strategy Guide.

There is no clock. Pause, list candidates, then type.

FAQ

Do I have to pay?

No. The browser game and the in-app Wordle board are free.

Can I play more than once a day?

Not on the official site. Midnight local time brings the next board.

What if I miss in six?

The answer reveals, your streak drops to zero, and tomorrow is a clean slate.

Phone-friendly?

Yes — mobile browser or the NYT Games app.

Who invented it?

Josh Wardle. Public in October 2021; Times acquisition in January 2022.