Enter green letters in the position boxes, yellow letters in "Letters in word," and gray letters in "Not in word." Click Find Possibilities to see all matching words from the full Wordle guess dictionary (~12,000 valid words). This includes both likely answers and valid tactical guesses.
The archive lists past Wordle answers only (the ~2,300 word answer pool). Today's answer is not shown — use the archive after you've played to check your result.
Josh Wardle built Wordle as a private toy for his partner in late 2020. She likes word games; he's a software engineer. He made it public in October 2021 and watched it go from ~90 daily players to over 300,000 in a matter of weeks — almost entirely through people sharing those colored emoji grids on Twitter without explanation.
The New York Times acquired it in January 2022 for a price reported to be in the low seven figures. Wardle said he was surprised by that outcome. The NYT moved the game to its own domain and has maintained the daily puzzle format, though it quietly updated the answer list to remove some words it considered too obscure or potentially offensive. About a dozen early answers were swapped out, which is why some third-party archives show slight discrepancies depending on when they were compiled.
The original answer list was pre-selected and ordered by Wardle and his partner — they went through a word frequency list and picked ~2,300 words they considered fair game for most English speakers. The list excludes proper nouns, plurals that feel trivial (like SHOWS or BOOKS), and words that require specialized knowledge. It's not algorithmically generated; someone actually sat down and curated it.
What the answer pool looks like
The ~2,300 answer words follow a few patterns worth knowing if you're trying to improve your solve rate:
~2,300
Answer pool size
The original pre-selected list before NYT removed a small number of words
~12,000
Valid guesses
Any 5-letter word Wordle accepts — much larger than the answer set
~72%
Have exactly 2 vowels
CVCVC and CCVCC patterns dominate the answer pool
~8%
Have repeated letters
Less common than you'd expect — most answers use 5 distinct letters
Most common letters in Wordle answers
Across the full answer pool, these are the most frequently appearing letters. Position matters too — E, A, and R appear across all five spots, while S almost never ends a Wordle answer (Wardle deliberately avoided it because it makes plurals too easy).
Letter
Approx. frequency
E
~11%
A
~9%
R
~8%
O
~7.5%
T
~7%
L
~6.5%
I
~6.5%
S
~6%
N
~5.5%
C
~4.5%
This is why CRANE, RAISE, SLATE, and STARE became popular opening words — they hit the highest-frequency letters across good positions. That said, none of them guarantee a fast solve. The variance in Wordle outcomes is high enough that starting word matters less than most players think.
Some notable past answers
Most Wordle answers pass without much comment. A few created genuine conversation:
KNOLL (Puzzle #258, March 9, 2022) — Double L plus the uncommon KN combination made this one of the more complained-about early answers on social media.
VIVID (Puzzle #245, Feb 24, 2022) — Two V's in a five-letter word is unusual enough that many players burned guesses on the second V position.
TAPIR (Puzzle #306, April 26, 2022) — A tapir is a large mammal. Legitimate word; several players claimed never to have heard it. Wordle doesn't care.
JAUNT (Puzzle #335, May 25, 2022) — No complaints; just a nice, clean word that most players got in 3.
ULCER (Puzzle #424, Aug 22, 2022) — U as the first letter is less common than A, E, or I, which caught a few players off guard.
CAULK (Puzzle #421, Aug 19, 2022) — Pronunciation isn't obvious from spelling, which doesn't matter for Wordle but it was widely noted anyway.
One recurring pattern: double-letter answers always generate more complaints, regardless of how common the word is. ROBOT (no doubles) gets a different reception than ABBEY (double B), even if both are fair five-letter words.
Frequently asked questions
Does this include today's Wordle answer?
No. The archive shows past answers only (yesterday and earlier). This lets you use the solver and look up puzzle history without accidentally seeing today's answer before you play.
Why does the solver show words not in the archive?
Wordle accepts about 12,000 valid English words as guesses, but only about 2,300 are in the answer pool. The solver searches all valid guesses — useful for tactical plays. Past Wordle answers all came from the smaller answer pool.
What is the puzzle number?
Wordle started on June 19, 2021 as Puzzle #1. Each day is a new consecutive number. The archive table shows the puzzle number for each past answer so you can find a specific game by date or number.
Did the NYT change the answers when it bought Wordle?
Yes, but only a small number. After acquiring Wordle in January 2022, the NYT removed about a dozen words from the upcoming answer list — words it judged as too obscure, potentially offensive, or too politically charged for the moment. FETUS was swapped out in May 2022 (the same week Roe v. Wade was overturned), for example. The NYT maintains it only adjusts words that haven't appeared yet. Some third-party archives compiled before the move reflect the original Wardle list; others show the NYT version.
How many guesses does the average player need?
Based on published NYT statistics and player-reported data, the median solve is around 4 guesses for regular players. The distribution is roughly: 3% in 1 (usually a guess or re-used answer from another source), ~8% in 2, ~25% in 3, ~35% in 4, ~20% in 5, ~7% in 6, and ~2% failures. Words with unusual letter patterns or double letters push the average higher.
Are there any words that will never be a Wordle answer?
Yes. Proper nouns (PARIS, TRUMP) are excluded. Plurals formed by adding S to a common four-letter word (BOOKS, GAMES) were largely avoided, which is why the answer list caps S-ending words — Wardle didn't want easy answers. Highly obscure words, profanity, and words the NYT considers too loaded for a daily puzzle are also excluded. The valid guess list (~12,000 words) is much broader and includes many words that will never appear as daily answers.
What's a good Wordle strategy?
Start with a word that covers E, A, R, O, and T — letters that appear most frequently across the answer pool. CRANE, RAISE, and STARE are popular because they hit several of these in useful positions. After two guesses, use the process of elimination: if you have 3 confirmed letters, don't waste guess 3 on a word that repeats confirmed letters — try a word that tests 5 new unknowns. Save the solver for when you're stuck with 2–3 guesses left and multiple equally likely options.