How the Wordle Helper works
Wordle clues are stronger than they look, because each one is really two facts. A green letter fixes a position. A yellow letter says the word contains the letter and rules out one position. A grey letter is the subtle one: it says the answer holds no more copies of that letter than the green and yellow copies already revealed. The helper turns all of that into counting rules and tests every one of the 8,636 five-letter words in the ENABLE list against them.
The survivors are ranked by letter position. Among the words that still fit, the helper counts how often each letter shows up in each of the five positions, then scores each candidate by adding the counts for its own letters. A word whose letters are common in their places rises to the top. The ranking is recomputed for your clues every time, and a one-line meaning from Princeton WordNet sits beside the common words, because choosing between FORGE and FORTE is easier when you can see what they mean.
One scope point, stated plainly. Wordle picks its answers from its own list, which is smaller than ENABLE and heavy with everyday words. This helper searches the wider list, so the answer is in the results when the clues are entered correctly, and some results are words Wordle itself is unlikely to set. The ranking exists to push those down. Which words make good openers, and the strategy behind them, is covered in best Wordle starting words and the Wordle strategy guide.
Duplicate letters: the rule that decides games
Play these two guesses against a hidden answer and watch the letter E. CRANE comes back with R yellow (not in position 2), E green in position 5, and C, A, N grey. SPEED comes back all grey, including both of its Es.
The wrong reading of SPEED is "E is not in the word", which would delete the green E you already own. The right reading is a count. The answer contains exactly one E, the green one at the end, and SPEED's two grey Es are the game telling you there is no second E anywhere. The helper applies grey this way automatically: a grey letter that is also green or yellow caps the count instead of removing the letter.
Entering those clues leaves 35 words standing from 8,636. The top of the ranked list is MURRE, FORGE and FORTE, and the everyday words in it include FORGE, ROUTE, ROUGE, FIBRE and ROGUE. One more guess at any of them settles most of the rest. This counting rule, and how to use it when you play unaided, is the heart of the strategy guide.
Questions
How does the helper handle duplicate letters?
By counting. A letter that appears green or yellow sets a minimum count. If the same letter also appears grey, the count is exact: the answer holds that many copies and no more. So a grey E beside a green E does not remove E. It removes the second E. Most wrong results come from treating every grey as not in the word at all, and this helper does not do that.
Why is a word I expected missing from the list?
Three usual causes. A grey letter was entered for a letter that is also green or yellow in your clues, which caps its count, so check the grey box for repeats. A yellow letter was given the position it cannot be in, and the word has it there. Or the word is not in the ENABLE list this helper searches, which holds 8,636 five-letter words and differs from Wordle's own lists by some entries.
Does the helper know today's Wordle answer?
No. It knows nothing about today's game. It filters the word list by the clues you type in, and the same clues always give the same list. Nothing is fetched from the New York Times and no answers are stored.
How are the suggestions ranked?
By letter position. The helper counts, among the words that still fit, how often each letter appears in each position, then scores every candidate by adding those counts for its five letters. Words built from letters that are common in those positions come first. A meaning is shown beside the common words to help you choose between them.
Is what I type stored or sent anywhere?
No. The helper runs in your browser. It downloads one word list file, the five-letter words, from this site, and your clues never leave your device.
More word tools
Sources
- Word list: ENABLE (public domain), the file the tools on this site load: github.com/brokensandals/wordlists
- Meanings: Princeton WordNet
- Frequency order: Peter Norvig's word counts, from Google Books n-gram data
- How the list and the meanings are checked: How We Verify