How to play Five Letters

Five Letters is a calm, satisfying word puzzle in the spirit of the daily word games everyone knows. There is one hidden five-letter word, and you have six attempts to find it. Every guess you type is checked against the dictionary and then colour-coded, and those colours are the clues that steer your next try. Most rounds take just a few minutes, and there is always tomorrow's word to look forward to.

Goal

Identify the secret five-letter word within six guesses. Each guess must itself be a real five-letter word — that keeps the feedback meaningful and stops wasted attempts.

Reading the colours

• Green — the right letter in the right place. Lock it in for every following guess.
• Yellow — the letter is in the word, but you have it in the wrong spot. Move it elsewhere next time.
• Grey — the letter is not in the word at all. Drop it from your thinking.

The on-screen keyboard also recolours itself as you play, so at a glance you can see which letters are still in contention and which have been ruled out.

Daily versus practice

Daily mode gives everyone the same word for the day; your progress is saved, so you can step away mid-round and pick up exactly where you left off. Come back after midnight (UTC) for a fresh puzzle. Practice mode serves up a random word whenever you like, so you can keep playing round after round with no daily limit.

Strategy and tips

Open with a word that packs in common letters and several vowels — RAISE, AUDIO, SLATE, and STARE are all strong starts. Use your second guess to test a different batch of letters rather than reshuffling the same ones. Once you have a couple of greens and yellows, look for the only sensible word that fits them all instead of guessing at random. When you are truly stuck, it can pay to spend a guess on a word built entirely from untested letters: ruling several out at once often reveals the answer faster than chasing one near-miss.