Wordle is a daily online word puzzle where you have six tries to guess a hidden five‑letter English word using color‑coded clues after each guess.

What is the Wordle?

  • Wordle is a browser-based word game created by software engineer Josh Wardle and later acquired by The New York Times.
  • There is one official puzzle per day, and everyone in the world plays for the same daily answer.
  • It became a major viral trend starting in late 2021 and remained a popular casual game through 2022 and beyond.

How the game works

When you open the game, you see a 6×5 grid of empty tiles.

  1. You type any valid five‑letter English word as your first guess and press Enter.
  1. The game colors each letter tile:
    • Green: correct letter in the correct spot.
    • Yellow: correct letter, wrong spot.
    • Gray: letter not in the word at all.
  1. You use these clues in up to six total guesses to find the word of the day.
  1. If you guess it in six or fewer tries, you “win” that day’s Wordle.

The answer list is a curated set of a couple thousand common five‑letter words, and the official game uses American spelling.

Extra modes and options

  • Hard Mode: forces you to reuse any revealed green or yellow letters in subsequent guesses, making it more challenging but more logical.
  • Dark Theme: changes the background to a darker palette for eye comfort.
  • Color‑blind / High‑contrast mode: swaps the standard green/yellow for higher‑contrast color pairs for accessibility.

These options are available from the settings (gear icon) in the game interface.

Why it’s a trending topic

  • Social media sharing: Wordle lets you copy a grid of colored squares (no letters) so you can post your results without spoiling the word.
  • Community feel: because everyone has the same puzzle each day, it fuels daily discussion, bragging rights, and friendly rivalry.
  • Low time cost: there’s only one puzzle per day, which keeps it from becoming a time sink but makes it feel like a small daily ritual.

Many forum and social posts use those green/yellow/gray square grids as a kind of shorthand for “I did today’s Wordle—how about you?”.

Quick FAQ

  • “Is Wordle free?” – The core daily Wordle puzzle on The New York Times site is free to play in a browser.
  • “Where do I play?” – On the official New York Times Wordle page in any modern web browser (phone, tablet, or computer).
  • “Can I play more than once a day?” – The main game gives only one new official puzzle per day; archives or clones exist but are separate from the main streak.

TL;DR: Wordle is a once‑a‑day, six‑guess, five‑letter word puzzle that uses green/yellow/gray tiles to guide you to the answer, and its simple rules plus shareable results made it a huge online trend.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.