Word guessing game
Play a free word guessing game online with no account: type a word, read the colours, narrow it down. Four to eleven letters, as many rounds as you like.
You are spending a turn to buy information. The best opening buys the most: five different letters, all common ones. You will almost never win on it, and trying to is how people waste the most valuable turn they have.
A guess that comes back entirely grey feels like a disaster and is often the most useful turn of the game — five letters eliminated at once. What loses games is refusing to spend a turn that cannot win.
Amber means the letter is in the word and NOT in that position. Putting it back in the same slot guarantees the same amber and buys nothing. Move it somewhere it has not been.
Four letters placed and one blank is the worst position on the board when the blank has six candidates — _IGHT gives you EIGHT, FIGHT, LIGHT, MIGHT, NIGHT, RIGHT, SIGHT and TIGHT. Spend a turn testing several of those letters at once rather than guessing them one at a time.
Past seven letters the game changes character. There are more places for a letter to hide, so eliminating becomes worth more than placing, and confirming an ending like ING or TION can settle several tiles in one turn.
It is the rule that catches everyone. The board marks a letter only as many times as the answer holds it, so a second E can come back grey while the first sits blue — that means "no more of these", not "not in the word".
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.
You guess a hidden word, and each guess is scored letter by letter — right letter in the right place, right letter in the wrong place, or not in the word at all. You use what each guess rules out to narrow the next one.
Hangman guesses one letter at a time and tells you only whether it is there. Here every guess is a whole word and every letter is scored, so a single turn can tell you six things at once — which is why six turns is enough.
Four to eleven. Five is the standard, four is quick, and anything past seven is a genuinely different puzzle. Longer words are given more guesses.
Some, and it is concentrated in one place: when several words fit and you have one turn left, choosing between them is a guess. Good play is about not arriving in that position, rather than winning it when you do.
Not on the same board, but the daily puzzle is one shared word worldwide — so the usual way is that everybody plays today's and compares afterwards. That is most of why these games spread.
One at a time, and never the answer.