Wordle practice guide: clues, repeated letters and better guesses
A yellow letter and a gray copy of the same letter can both be correct clues. Understanding that detail is more useful than memorizing a supposedly perfect starting word. Use this guide to make sense of the feedback in FoolFish Wordle.
How to play this five-letter word game
Enter a valid five-letter word and press Enter. You have six guesses to identify the answer. A green tile confirms the letter and its position. Yellow means the letter belongs elsewhere. Gray means there is no remaining copy of that letter in the answer after the other matches have been accounted for.
Read the whole row before guessing again. The colors describe that particular guess, not an instruction to ignore every occurrence of a gray letter forever. An incomplete entry or a word outside the accepted dictionary is rejected before a guess is recorded.
Repeated letters: APPLE and ALLEY
Take APPLE as an example answer and ALLEY as the guess. The A is green. The first L is yellow because the answer contains an L in a different position. The second L is gray because there is only one L to account for. E is yellow, and Y is gray.
The lesson is about quantity as well as position. The gray second L does not cancel the yellow first L. It tells you that the guess used one L too many. Likewise, a word can contain repeated letters even if your earlier guess tested only one copy. Keep confirmed information and untested possibilities separate.
A useful routine for the next guess
First keep the green positions in mind. Then list the yellow letters and where they cannot go. Finally, use the gray feedback to remove possibilities, remembering the repeated-letter rule. Compare a candidate word against every earlier row before submitting it.
When several answers still fit, a guess with informative letters can separate them. When only one guess remains, you need an answer candidate rather than a word chosen only to test unrelated letters. The best choice depends on the clues already collected, so one fixed opening cannot be a complete strategy.
Use free Wordle practice to study one habit
Practice mode offers additional rounds without changing daily statistics or streaks. Pick one skill for a session: honoring yellow-position exclusions, checking repeated letters, or avoiding a guess contradicted by an earlier row. That makes another round a useful exercise rather than just another score.
After a miss, inspect the clue that first ruled out your preferred answer. If you ignored a yellow position, that is a specific habit to change. If your candidate was still valid but unlucky, do not invent a mistake. A limited number of guesses leaves room for uncertainty.
Daily puzzles and readable clues
The FoolFish daily puzzle changes at 00:00 UTC. If you return to an unfinished earlier puzzle, the game lets you continue it and offers a separate way to open the current daily puzzle. Practice is available when you want another word.
Settings include a high-contrast blue/orange palette and reduced motion; the letter-position rules stay the same. This is the independent FoolFish word game with its own answer pool. This page is a rules and strategy guide, not a source of New York Times daily answers.
Common questions
Can a gray letter still occur in the answer?
Yes, when another copy of that letter in the guess has already matched. Gray then means there is no additional copy for that position.
Does practice change my daily streak?
No. Practice rounds do not affect daily statistics or streaks.
Are these the New York Times answers?
No. FoolFish uses its own curated answer pool.