What is Wordle? How to play Wordle, best words to try, reset time UK, why it’s so popular

Wordle is an online word game that went viral on Twitter, here’s how to play Wordle and why the game became so popular today.

Millions of people around the world enjoy the simple yet challenging daily word puzzle game, Wordle. Wordle was created by US-based Welsh software engineer Joshua Wardle as a way to pass time productively during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But after Wardle released the word guessing game for free on his website in October 2021, Wordle spread far and wide across the web – with grids of grey, yellow and green emojis littering social media timelines.

What is Wordle? How to play Wordle, rules, 5 letter words to try and Wordle spin-off games Nerdle and Globle

But what is Wordle? And why has such a simple word puzzle game become so popular online?

Here’s everything you need to know about the overwhelmingly popular online word-guessing game and how to play it.

What is Wordle?

Wordle is an online word game bearing some resemblance to popular code-breaking, colour-coded board games like Mastermind, but is even more simple in its design.

Five letters, six attempts, and only one word per day: the formula for "Wordle" is simple, but for the past few weeks this online game has been stirring up social networks in the United States, and has since been adapted for a French-speaking audience. (Image credit: Stefani Reynolds /AFP via Getty Images)

Every new day brings a new, mystery five letter word to guess – which must be done through entering five letter words onto Wordle’s 30 tile grid.

The first attempt will see any tiles containing the correct letter change colour to either yellow, green or grey, prompting users to make further guesses with words containing more of the correct or partially letters to be found in the ‘Wordle’ of the day.

According to a profile of the game’s success in The New York Times, Wordle was born out of both pandemic boredom for Wardle, a software engineer who has previously designed unique social experiments for online community discussion platform, Reddit.

Wardle told The New York Times that he also sought to create something that satisfied his partner’s appreciation for puzzle games, crosswords and spelling games such as The New York Times’ popular Spelling Bee.

Every new day brings a new, mystery five letter word to guess – which must be done through entering five letter words onto Wordle’s 30 tile grid. (Image credit: screengrab/wordle)

Launched in October, the player count quickly rose from tens of daily players guessing each word of the day, to millions by the end of the first week of the new year.

On Monday January 31, The New York Times announced that it had purchased Wordle from Wardle in an ‘undisclosed price in the low seven figures’.

The move worried many users, who feared that the game would become paywalled or subject to advertising in future – with The Times saying that Wordle will continue to be free to play ‘at the time it moves to The New York Times’.

And while it stated that ‘no changes will be made to its gameplay’, the game’s move to The New York Times puzzle site saw some players initially lose their streaks.

Some permitted words and Wordle answers have since also been tweaked to avoid lewd attempts or overly challenging answers.

On its website, The Times states: “We are updating the word list over time to remove obscure words to keep the puzzle accessible to more people, as well as insensitive or offensive words.

"To ensure your game is in sync with the updated version, you should refresh the website where you play Wordle.

“We have not made any changes to the basic functionality or rules of the game. “We are committed to continuing what makes the game great.”

Why is Wordle so popular?

A far cry from the mobile and video games of eerily realistic graphics, notifications and frenzied animations that populate our modern world, Wordle’s appeal seems to lie predominantly in its simplicity.

With millions of users now jumping on to Wardle’s site every day to guess each new ‘wordle’, many users have enjoyed the simple frustrations of a game that has just one, five-letter answer for everyone and can only be played once a day – rather than consumed all in one go.

“It’s something that encourages you to spend three minutes a day,” Wardle told The New York Times.

“And that’s it.

"Like, it doesn’t want any more of your time than that.”

But the buzz around the game also has much to do with its current hype on social media, with many users choosing to share their daily Wordle results on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, as well as with friends.

Wordle’s simple ‘share’ button, displayed once you’ve succeeded or failed in guessing the word of the day, instantly copies results to clipboard to be copy and pasted into tweets, posts and texts as a series of grey, yellow and green squares.

How to play Wordle

Wordle is freely available to play online from any device with a web browser, such as a smartphone, desktop computer or tablet at https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/.

Users visiting this site will now find themselves redirected to Wordle on The New York Times’ website at https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html.

And while the game is more frustrating and difficult than it may first seem, Wordle’s rules are fairly straightforward.

Guesses at the ‘Wordle’ of the day have to be five letters in length and only six attempts can be made in total.

Once you’ve entered your first five letter word, hit the enter button to submit.

You will then see each letter on its tile turn to either grey, yellow or green.

If a tile turns yellow, this means that its particular letter is included in the mystery word of the day and if it turns green, the letter is included in the final word and also in the right place.

When a letter occurs twice in daily Wordle, the game will not make it obvious – only turning a correctly placed or guessed letter green or yellow once rather than twice to indicate where else it may be found.

Letters on tiles which are greyed out mean that these are not included in the wordle – leaving you to figure out what the wordle is based on which letters in your previous attempt were completely correct (green) or almost right (yellow).

But British players, along with those who opt for British rather than American spellings of certain words, should be mindful of the slight differences that can occur between US and British English spellings when making their attempts to guess each daily word on Wordle.

And once you’ve tried Wordle once for the day, you won’t get to have another go.

Unlike the majority of games we’re used to playing today, which can become incredibly addictive and limitless in the pursuit to winning or finishing, Wordle can only be played once per day – with users having to patiently wait until the following day to try and guess the new word of the day in fewer attempts.

5 letter Wordle words with most vowels to try

The biggest challenge when it comes to playing Wordle is often deciding which five letter word you are going to try first.

The seed word you choose can either set you on the course for victory or plunge you into a cycle of despair should it not contain any of the letters included in each day’s Wordle.

This is why experts such as Countdown’s Susie Dent suggest picking five letter words which contain lots of vowels.

Vowel-heavy words such as ‘house’, ‘ouija’, ‘ourie’, ‘adieu’ and ‘alien’ can help to narrow down the possibilities with your first Wordle attempt.

Here’s a list of other five letter words with lots of vowels to help:

- Adieu

- Alien

- Angle

- Audio

- Bears

- Braid

- Games

- Graze

- Heart

- House

- Irate

- Leant

- Miaou

- Ouija

- Ourie

- Peace

- Piers

- Quote

- Raise

- Ready

- Roast

- Spade

- Spoil

- Stain

- Stare

- Taser

- Trial

- Water

- Vapes

- Vapor

What is Wordle’s UK reset time?

With only one Wordle dropping each day, people across the world now find themselves waiting eagerly for the next Wordle to emerge.

The exact time when Wordle resets depends on your location but according to Dot Esports: “Wordle resets daily at midnight local time. This means that no matter what part of the globe you are in, you will always get a new word when your clock hits midnight.

"This is because Wordle works entirely through the browser and with a timer based on the client side.”