Skip to the Game
Wordplay

Guide

Does Wordle use American spelling? Yes, and here is the fix

FAVOR, COLOR, FIBER. If you learned to spell in Britain or Australia, the answer occasionally punishes you for it. It does not have to.

2 min read

Short answer: yes. The word list behind the original game is American, so FAVOR, COLOR, FIBER and TIRE can all turn up as answers, and the British and Australian forms of those words are not what the board is looking for.

If you learned to spell in Britain, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada or India, this is not a small annoyance. It is the difference between losing on your own knowledge and losing on somebody else's dictionary.

Where it actually bites

There are two separate problems and they are usually run together.

Guesses being refused. You type FAVOUR and the board tells you it is not a word. It is a word. This one is easy to fix — accept both spellings — and most alternatives do.

The answer being a variant. The word of the day is FAVOR, you spend three guesses on FAVOUR-shaped words, and you lose. Accepting both spellings does not fix this. Somebody still has to type the spelling that looks wrong to them, and be told they were right to.

Why we do it differently

Two decisions, and the second is the one that matters.

Guesses follow your dictionary. Pick US, UK or Australian and the accept list follows. FAVOUR, COLOUR, TRAVELLED and CENTRE are all valid guesses on the British setting, and both ‑ISE and ‑IZE endings are accepted because British English genuinely uses both.

The shared daily answer is never a variant word at all. Any word whose spelling changes between regions is excluded from the daily pool outright. That is stronger than accepting both forms: there is no day on which your spelling is the wrong one, because the word of the day is a word that is spelled the same everywhere.

The daily stays one shared word worldwide, which is most of the point of a daily puzzle — you and everybody else are solving the same thing. The region setting decides what you are allowed to type, which is where it belongs.

If you just want to play in your own spelling

There is a British page and an Australian one. Both draw their practice words from that region's list, so nothing you are asked to guess will look wrong to you.

The ones that catch people out

American British and Australian
FAVOR, COLOR, HONOR FAVOUR, COLOUR, HONOUR
CENTER, THEATER, FIBER CENTRE, THEATRE, FIBRE
TRAVELED, MODELING TRAVELLED, MODELLING
DEFENSE, LICENSE DEFENCE, LICENCE
GRAY GREY

GRAY and GREY are the cruel one — both are valid words in both places, which means neither list can rule the other out, and you can spend two guesses discovering which one the board wants.

More free word games and tools

Wordle Unlimited Play wordle unlimited free, as many rounds as you like, at four to eleven letters. The practice mode the daily game never gave you, with no one-a-day limit and nothing to sign up to. Wordle Archive Every past wordle puzzle, still playable and still free. Catch up on the ones you missed, or play old wordle puzzles from the very beginning, with no account and no subscription. Mini Crossword A free online crossword in five by five, with real clues written from a dictionary rather than trivia. An easy crossword you can finish in a couple of minutes, new every day. Word Search Word search online at four difficulties, on a grid generated fresh every time so you never meet the same puzzle twice. There are printable word search sheets too if you would rather use a pen. Spelling Bee The spelling bee game with your spelling, not ours: seven letters, one in the middle, and every word you can build from them. A daily spelling bee puzzle plus every hive we have set before it. Boggle Play boggle free on a four by four tray: trace every word you can find through touching letters before the clock runs out. A word grid game that scores longer finds higher. Text Twist Text twist online and free: six letters, and every word they can make, against the clock. A word scramble game where finding the six-letter word opens the next round. Word Ladder A word ladder puzzle: change one letter at a time to get from the first word to the last, and every rung has to be a real word. Solve it in as few steps as you can. Cryptogram Cryptogram puzzles in a letter substitution cipher, in the cryptoquote style. Crack a single letter and it fills in everywhere at once, until the whole quote reads. Hangman The hangman game online, at three to eleven letters. Free hangman with a word list long enough that it will not repeat on you, and the one game everybody already knows how to play. Sight Word Games Sight word bingo on a four by four card: a word is called and your child finds it. Built on the Dolch sight words schools have set since 1936, for the words that cannot be sounded out. Phonics Games Phonics games for children learning to read: sound out CVC words one letter at a time, with the missing sound to find. Phonics practice for kids that speaks the word aloud. Wordle for Kids Wordle for kids, age-banded for five to thirteen at three to five letters. Word games for kids that stay inside vocabulary a child that age actually meets, with no ads during play. Wordle Solver A free wordle solver and wordle helper: enter the letters you have found and where they sit, and see every word still possible. No account, and it never shows you the answer unasked. Word Unscrambler Unscramble words instantly: type your letters and get every word they make, longest first. A letter unscrambler that works on anything from three letters to a full rack. Anagram Solver An anagram solver that uses every letter you give it, not just some of them. Rearrange a word or a name into the real words hiding inside it. Word Finder Find words with letters you already hold, and say where they sit. A word finder tool for a board you are part way through rather than a blank rack. Scrabble Word Finder Every playable word from your Scrabble rack, scored on official tile values and sorted highest first. A scrabble helper for the word you cannot quite see. Words With Friends Finder Your rack scored on Words With Friends tile values, which are not the Scrabble ones, against the dictionary that game actually accepts. A words with friends cheat that knows the difference. Crossword Solver A crossword clue solver for a half-filled grid: give it the letters you have and a question mark for the rest, and see every answer that fits.