Turn Wordle colors into usable constraints
The hard part is not finding five-letter words. It is recording exactly what each clue rules in and rules out.
Written by Somit Choudhury, teacher and creator of Unscramble.It.
Wordle is a position-and-elimination puzzle, while a general unscrambler answers a different question: which words can be built from these letters? A broad dictionary can help you brainstorm, but it is not the official Wordle answer list. Use a tool to create candidates, then test every candidate against the clues you actually received.
Keep three separate records
Do not combine “present” and “fixed.” If R is yellow in position two, you know both that R belongs in the word and that position two is unavailable to it. Losing the second fact creates candidates that merely repeat an already-disproved guess.
Treat repeated letters carefully
Suppose a guess contains two E tiles and only one receives a color. That does not necessarily exclude E; it often means the answer contains exactly one E. Gray is simple only when the guessed letter appears once. Whenever a guess repeats a letter, interpret all copies together before adding that letter to your excluded list.
Choose between solving and learning
A candidate that could be the answer is a solving guess. A word chosen mainly to test several uncertain letters is an information guess. Early in a puzzle, an information guess can separate many candidates. Late in a puzzle, especially when only one or two answers remain, guessing a plausible solution directly is usually more efficient. Hard Mode changes the available choices because revealed hints must be used in later guesses.
Candidate checklist
- Is the word exactly five letters?
- Does every green letter stay in its fixed position?
- Does every yellow letter appear somewhere other than its rejected positions?
- Does the word avoid excluded letters, with duplicate-letter evidence handled correctly?
- Have you accidentally added a second copy of a letter when the clues support only one?
Unscramble.It can supply a broad starting list using letters and wildcards. Open the tool, then use “starts with,” “ends with,” and “contains” where those constraints genuinely match your clues. Always apply the remaining position checks yourself.