Practice Five-Letter Guess — Free Word Game
A fresh word whenever you want. Six tries.
How to play
Find the hidden five-letter word in six tries. Type letters on your physical keyboard or tap the letter keys, then press Enter to check a complete guess. Erase removes the last letter. Each submitted word fills one row, so you can compare all the clues before choosing your next guess. There is no timer or account to sign up for.
A green tile with a check mark means the letter is in the right spot. A gold tile with a double arrow means the letter is in the word elsewhere. A gray tile with a cross means that copy of the letter is not in the word. Tile labels also describe the result for screen readers. The keyboard remembers the best result seen for each letter: right spot takes priority over elsewhere, which takes priority over absent.
Repeated letters are checked in two passes. First, letters in the right spot use up those copies in the answer. Then the other letters are checked from left to right: a letter is marked elsewhere only if an unused copy remains in the answer. Extra copies are marked not in the word. A gray copy beside a green or gold copy does not mean the letter is completely absent; it means there are no more copies available for that guess.
An entry with fewer than five letters, a word missing from the accepted list, or a guess already made gets a clear message and uses no attempt. Use Erase to fix your entry. A correct guess wins immediately; after six unsuccessful guesses the answer is shown. Give up shows the answer early and earns no daily solve. The answer stays hidden until the game ends.
Hard mode is off by default. Turn it on to require all previously revealed letters in later guesses. Keep right-spot letters in their positions, move elsewhere letters away from the spots where they were marked, and reuse at least the revealed number of copies of each letter. You can switch the setting during an unfinished game; it affects future guesses and does not change earlier feedback.
The daily game is shared by UTC date and changes at midnight UTC. A dated daily link lets you revisit that puzzle. A streak counts consecutive UTC days solved; losses and Give up do not earn a solve. Practice starts with puzzle 1, and New puzzle advances the number on your device. Your progress and guess distribution are saved locally when browser storage is available. Share sends only an emoji result grid, the number of tries and a link, never the answer or your guessed letters.
Solving tips
Start with an accepted word that tests several different letters. Use the feedback to reduce the possibilities before spending the next attempt. A right-spot clue fixes a position; an elsewhere clue rules out that position for that letter. Try to account for all the clues together rather than replacing a word with a near match that ignores an earlier result.
Watch repeated letters carefully. If two copies receive positive feedback, you need at least two copies in the answer. If one is positive and another is gray, only one copy was available to mark in that row. Right-spot matches are assigned first, even when an earlier copy appears elsewhere in your guess. The symbols on tiles let you read this without relying on their colors.
In normal mode, a guess can test new letters even if it does not reuse earlier clues. In hard mode, it must preserve those clues. Neither setting promises that every puzzle can be deduced in six attempts: several words can share the same pattern. Take a moment to compare the remaining choices, and use practice to explore patterns without affecting your daily streak.
About the word list
The answer pool contains 2,985 screened five-letter words from Alan Beale’s 12dicts 6.0.2 common-word list, 2of12, leaving out plain plurals such as NEEDS so the hidden word is never just another word plus S. Guesses use the existing 5,029-entry 2of12inf list, which includes inflected forms and some less common words. These are the same unchanged files used by our five-letter word ladders. Blocked entries are absent from both lists; words marked as unsuitable to show may be accepted as guesses but are never chosen as answers. Code selects the hidden word and checks every guess; no generated vocabulary is added. A fixed shuffled cycle indexed by UTC day keeps daily answers distinct for 2,985 days before the cycle repeats. Practice uses a separate fixed shuffled sequence. Read about Alan Beale’s 12dicts.
The 2of12 list is public domain. The inflected 2of12inf list includes AGID (Copyright 2000 Kevin Atkinson), WordNet 1.6 (Copyright 1997 Princeton University) and UK Advanced Cryptics Dictionary data (Copyright J Ross Beresford 1993–1999). Their permission and source notices are retained in our derived files and available below.
Word list attribution and notices
12dicts 6.0.2 by Alan Beale. 2of12 public domain; 2of12inf uses AGID.
Automatically Generated Inflection Database (AGID)
August 19, 2000
Revision 2
Copyright 2000 by Kevin Atkinson <kevina@users.sourceforge.net>
The file "infl.txt" is an automatically created database of the
inflected forms of words from an insanely large word list.
The latest version can be found at http://aspell.sourceforge.net/wl/.
Entries are in the following form.
<word> <pos>: <inflected forms>
Where <pos> is V for verb, N for noun, or A or adjective or adverb.
If <pos> is followed by a ? that means that the part-of-speech was not
in the part-of-speech database however the inflected forms of the word
where found in the word list.
The inflected forms are in the following order for verbs (except for
the verb "be"):
<past tense> [<past participle>] <-ing form> <plural form>
and for adjective or adverbs:
<-er form> <-est form>
There are two spaces between each form.
A word in parentheses mean that it is considered a less preferred form
of the previous inflection. Two parentheses means that the word is
even less preferred, etc. A / between two words means that the two
words are considered almost equal variants or that is is difficult to
tell which one is the primary form. They are ordered by preference
however sometime this distinction is so slight it is meaningless. A
"|" between words means that both inflections are used depending on
the meaning of the word. If the distinction between the two forms can
be described in a word than that word is found after the word in
braces, for example:
hang V: hung {suspend} | hanged {execute} hanging hangs
Notice how there is two spaces between the past tense, -ing form and
plural form but not between the alternate forms of the past tense. In
general, if the "|" symbol would be needed more than once the words
the entry is split up into multiple lines like so:
<word> [{explanation}] <POS>: <inflected forms>
However, the past particle as past tense form are considered a single
form. Thus, a "|" may appear more than once when the word contains
both a past participial and past tense form.
A /? between words means that both inflections were found in the word
list but the script was not sure which one to use. A ~ after a word
means that there is a slight chance that it is the plural of a word.
A ! after a word indicates that the word is likely an inflections of a
similar word (generally one ending in e) and not the current word. A
? after a word means that the word was not in the word list but if it
was it would be considered an inflected form of the base word.
Fell free to send me corrections to correct any of these questionable
words. I am mostly interested in the preferred form of the word in
the case of /? or words marked with a ~ that are actually valid.
Words are in mixed case but all accents have been scripted thus words
like café are instead cafe.
The file "variant" contains a list of alternate inflections.
The file "irregular" contains extra information where a noun or verb
has irregular inflected forms.
The file "dontuse" contains a list of words not to consider an
inflected form of a word if more than one inflected form of a word is
found.
The files "prefixes" and "suffixes" contains a list of common prefixes
and suffixes respectfully. These files are used by the script to
produce inflected forms for words that end in a word in the
"irregular" file. If the beginning appears in the word list or the
prefixes file and the ending appears in the irregular file I also
consider <prefix>+<irregular inflections>. If the prefix is 3 letters
or more OR appears in the prefixes file and the suffix is 4 letters or
more OR appears in the suffixes file I consider it the most likely
choice, otherwise I consider it as a possible candidate but not the
most likely choice.
The file "make-infl" is the actual Perl script used to create the
data base.
CHANGES:
From Revision 1 to 2 (August 18, 2000)
Classified variants as either almost equal, also used, or
secondary.
The / is now used to indicate equal variants. "/?" is now used to
mean what "/" used to be.
Lots of additional rules added which greatly improved the results.
COPYRIGHT AND SOURCE:
The final product is under the following copyright, as well as any
copyrights mentioned below.
Copyright 2000 by Kevin Atkinson
Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this database,
the associated scripts, the output created form the scripts and its
documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies and
that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
supporting documentation. Kevin Atkinson makes no representations
about the suitability of this array for any purpose. It is provided
"as is" without express or implied warranty.
The part-of-speech database used is created form the Moby
part-of-speech database which is in the public domain:
The Moby lexicon project is complete and has
been place into the public domain. Use, sell,
rework, excerpt and use in any way on any platform.
Placing this material on internal or public servers is
also encouraged. The compiler is not aware of any
export restrictions so freely distribute world-wide.
You can verify the public domain status by contacting
Grady Ward
3449 Martha Ct.
Arcata, CA 95521-4884
grady@netcom.com
grady@northcoast.com
and the WordNet database which is under the following copyright:
This software and database is being provided to you, the LICENSEE, by
Princeton University under the following license. By obtaining, using
and/or copying this software and database, you agree that you have
read, understood, and will comply with these terms and conditions.:
Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and
database and its documentation for any purpose and without fee or
royalty is hereby granted, provided that you agree to comply with
the following copyright notice and statements, including the disclaimer,
and that the same appear on ALL copies of the software, database and
documentation, including modifications that you make for internal
use or for distribution.
WordNet 1.6 Copyright 1997 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
THIS SOFTWARE AND DATABASE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND PRINCETON
UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PRINCETON
UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT-
ABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE
OF THE LICENSED SOFTWARE, DATABASE OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT
INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR
OTHER RIGHTS.
The name of Princeton University or Princeton may not be used in
advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software
and/or database. Title to copyright in this software, database and
any associated documentation shall at all times remain with
Princeton University and LICENSEE agrees to preserve same.
The word list used is a combination of several word list:
1) Most of the word lists from the Moby Words package:
10196pla.ces 113809of.fic 21986na.mes 256772co.mpo 354984si.ngl
3897male.nam 4160offi.cia 4946fema.len 6213acro.nym 74550com.mon
The Moby Word package, like the Part-Of-Speech database is in the
public domain.
2) The ENABLE2K word lists which is in the public domain:
The ENABLE master word list, WORD.LST, is herewith formally
released into the Public Domain. Anyone is free to use it or
distribute it in any manner they see fit. No fee or registration
is required for its use nor are "contributions" solicited (if you
feel you absolutely must contribute something for your own peace
of mind, the authors of the ENABLE list ask that you make a
donation on their behalf to your favorite charity). This word
list is our gift to the Scrabble community, as an alternate to
"official" word lists. Game designers may feel free to
incorporate the WORD.LST into their games. Please mention the
source and credit us as originators of the list. Note that if
you, as a game designer, use the WORD.LST in your product, you
may still copyright and protect your product, but you may *not*
legally copyright or in any way restrict redistribution of the
WORD.LST portion of your product. This *may* under law restrict
your rights to restrict your users' rights, but that is only
fair.
3) All of the word lists in the ENABLE2K Supplemnt which consists of:
2DICTS.LST ALSO.LST LETTERS.LST OSPDADD.LST UCACR.LST
ABLE.LST LCACR.LST NOPOS.LST PLURALS.LST UPPER.LST
All of these word lists are also in the public domain.
4) The list of signature words from the YAWL package which is in the
public domain.
5) The UK Advanced Cryptics Dictionary which in under the following
copyright:
Copyright (c) J Ross Beresford 1993-1999. All Rights Reserved.
The following restriction is placed on the use of this
publication: if The UK Advanced Cryptics Dictionary is used
in a software package or redistributed in any form, the
copyright notice must be prominently displayed and the text
of this document must be included verbatim.
There are no other restrictions: I would like to see the
list distributed as widely as possible.
6) Some extra words found in the Part-Of-Speech database that was not
found in any of the above word list.
7) Words found in the Jargon File Word List package, available at
http://aspell.sourceforge.net/wl/, which is in the Public Domain.
8) And finally some extra words that I added myself. These words can be
found in the file "extra-words"
The "dontuse", "irregular", and "variant" file was created by me
(Kevin Atkinson) from numerous sources.