Wordle

A sample game of Wordle, with correctly guessed letters in green, letters in incorrect places in yellow, and wrong letters in gray

Wordle is a popular online word game in which a new puzzle is uploaded every day. It was developed by Josh Wardle, who eventually sold it to the New York Times for a seven-figure value. As of March 2024, it is still maintained by the New York Times.

The goal of Wordle is to deduce a five-letter word (language) within six guesses. The letters of each guess turn colors when locked in to give players clues on the word they are trying to guess. Gray letters are not in the final word, yellow letters are in the word but are currently located in the wrong space, and green letters are in the correct space. If the player doesn't guess the word within six attempts, they lose.

An example of an emoji message indicating the correctness of the guesses of a player and how many tries it took them to solve the puzzle

One's personal results in the daily Wordle are easily shared with others. Upon selecting the "share results" button, emojis are copied to the keyboard that illustrate the correctness of each guess, as well as a number indicating the number of guesses it took the player to guess the word, if they deduced it correctly in time. By using emojis, players are able to share their results without spoiling the answer for other people.

Wordle's popularity led to a similar style of game, commonly denoted by -dle or -le, in which players guess something with only a limited number of guesses and information. Examples include "Heardle," where players must guess a song with only a few seconds to listen to, and "Worldle," in which players must guess the country of origin of a picture with few details.