Five Letters

Tips for Five Letters

Your first guess does the most work in Five Letters, so pick a word with five different letters rather than one that repeats a letter. Read every row before you type the next one: a green block has found its place, an amber letter belongs somewhere else in the word, and a grey letter can be ruled out for the rest of the puzzle. The most common mistake is wasting a try on a word that reuses grey letters or puts an amber letter back in the same spot.

The answers are everyday words, so when you are stuck, think of plain words you would use in a sentence rather than rare ones. Start with the daily word to build your streak, then move to Endless when you want more practice. Hard mode is worth trying once you are comfortable, because it makes you keep every green letter in place and use every amber letter in each new guess, which rewards careful reading over lucky guesses.

How to play Five Letters

In Five Letters you have six tries to guess a hidden five-letter word. Type a five-letter word as your first guess and submit it. Besides the answers, the game accepts more than nine thousand words as guesses, so the words you try are recognised.

When you submit a guess, the row stamps onto the page and each block turns over to give you a clue. Green means the letter is in the word and in the right place. Amber means the letter is in the word but somewhere else. Grey means the letter is not in the word at all. Use those clues in your next guess: keep the green letters where they are, try the amber ones in new places and leave the grey ones out. You solve the puzzle by finding the word within six tries, and the answer is always an everyday word.

The daily word is the same for everyone on that date and builds your streak. Endless gives you a new word each time you solve one. Hard mode holds you to every hint: green letters must stay in place and amber letters must appear in every later guess. Your streak, the puzzles you have solved and how many tries each one took are kept in your browser. On a computer, type the letters, press Enter to submit and Backspace to remove a letter. On a phone or tablet, tap the on-screen blocks. P pauses and M mutes.

About Five Letters

Five Letters belongs to a family of word games built on one simple idea: guess a hidden word and use clues about its letters to close in on it. The daily five-letter form of the idea has become a shared habit for a great many people, because everyone gets the same word and can compare how many tries it took.

Kiloo's Five Letters sets the puzzle on a printer's desk under a lamp. Every letter is a block of wooden type that drops into place, every guess stamps down in ink, and a solved word ends in a shower of ink splats and paper scraps. The word list was written for this game, with a couple of thousand everyday answers, so the hidden word is never something obscure. That makes it a good fit for anyone who likes words, from younger players with a growing vocabulary to seasoned puzzlers, who can switch on Hard mode for a stricter test. The daily word keeps your streak going, a little card of bars shows how many tries your puzzles took, and Endless is there when one word is not enough.

Frequently asked questions