The latest buzz on the fun side of the internet is all about the amusing online word game, Wordle. It gives you 6 attempts to guess ‘the word of the day,’ and it has unique indicators that cue the player to rearrange the words to find the right order.
Wordle is a daily challenge that gives hints using colors as stimuli. When an input letter is a part of the word, it is highlighted in yellow color. If the letter is in the right position as well, the letter gets highlighted in green. Finally, if the letter you input is wrong, it is highlighted in grey.
With such an interesting color paradigm going on, does Wordle follow any criteria for selecting the word of the day? Do words with repeating letters also appear in the challenge? Here’s everything we’ve found out!
Related: How to Share Wordle Results on Android and iPhone
Can Letters Repeat in Wordle?
Yes, the words in the daily challenge may have repeated letters. The only unbreakable rules of Wordle words are 1) the words can only have 5 letters, and 2) they ought to be real words. You can not input a made-up word like “blout” and expect the game to accept it.
But, words with a certain letter repeated twice are not unheard of in the Wordle challenge universe. In fact, repeated letters are not too rare in Wordle world as we have seen players sharing on social media about clearing words like “Abbey” and “Banal.”
Can Wordle Use Same Letter Twice?
Words with repeated letters may have any combination and pattern. For instance, the word “bookkeeper” has three letters that repeat in pairs three times. There can be other combinations like the non-consecutive repetition of “t” and “a” in “tantalizing”, or alternating repetition of “e”,”i” and “t” in the word “repetition.”
However, in the Wordle world, the words have a character restriction of 5. Hence, the repeated letters usually appear consecutively like the letter “b” in the word “Abbey” or non-consecutively like “a” in the word “Banal.” In fact, the most recent Wordle challenge is another word that has a letter repeated non-consecutively(Can’t reveal, because, nobody likes Spoilers, right?)
For players looking for a strategy, repeating letters are a good way to make the progressing moves (repeated letters are not the best first moves, though.) As five letter words, the repeating letter combinations tend to be double letters like “ss” (eg: floss, glass), “nn” (eg: funny, sunny), “ll” (Fills, kills), “pp” (eg: happy, soppy), “ff” (eg: bluff, staff), “bb” (eg: abbot, hobby), “o” (eg: blood, bloom), “d” (added, buddy”), etc.
Another possible direction to take your guesswork is to think of double letters in the middle like “fully”, “paddy” or at the end like “three”, “dress”, “still,” etc. Of course, we can not forget the alternating or non-consecutive repetitions of a,e,i,o,u (eg: abate, eager, filip, ovoid, augur, etc.)
Wordle rules for ‘Same Letter Used Twice’: All you need to know
We have established that Wordle words may have repeated letters. Does Wordle give any special hints to the players if a repeated letter is input in any of the five boxes in a row? After playing a couple of Wordle repeated word challenges, we have found out that repeated letters are treated just like any other letter in the game.
To demonstrate, let’s study a screenshot of the “ABBEY” Wordle. The “B” placed in the right “middle” position is highlighted in “green” following the rules like the “B”s in yellow indicating their wrong letter position.
So, what if you repeat a letter more times than it actually appears in the word? Will the repeated letter be highlighted in yellow regardless?
No, Wordle is very strict and fair with its letters. If you repeat a letter more than it appears, then the excess will be highlighted in grey. For instance, we can see below that when the player entered double “E” in a guessed word, one of them was highlighted in yellow while the other was in grey, meaning there is indeed and only one “E” in the word. Since the first “E” in the double letter pair got highlighted in yellow, it also means that neither of them is in the right position. In short, in the case of all the repeated letters being in the wrong position, the first one(s) would get a yellow highlight, and the excess repeated letter(s) would get grey highlights.
In Wordle, letters may be repeated in any order as many times as it can be done, however, the Wordle rules don’t show them any special favor, but treat them as isolated characters. It makes the game more interesting as it really challenges you to identify the word by your own effort rather than depending on system-designed hints.
Related: Why am I seeing Wordle on Facebook?
Why can’t I backspace to correct a wrong letter before I hit enter?
I do it all the time. Like any keystroke on a screen keyboard, iI find that clean, centered strikes on the backspace key work the best.
But what about using a correct letter twice in the wrong position? Like Guessing “apple” for “paste”? Do both p’s get a yellow or just one? If one, which position?
You can.The bottom right icon on the keyboard is the backspace button.
The letter will appear in green if it’s correct and in the right place. The additional same letter will appear as yellow if it’s correct but in the wrong place. Usual rules apply to double letter words. Tip; double letters normally appear alongside ie Apple, happy, fluffy, in 5 letter words. Enjoy!
Technically, fluffy has 6 letters. But I get the point.
Only one ‘p’ will be yellow, probably the first one, the other grey. This is explained above.
Some people post it on Facebook. How do you do that?
There is a little three squared box right above the game that you click on, opening a window for you to share, it’s highlighted in green. Once you click on the word share, you can paste it to wherever but I think it automatically pastes to your clipboard if you’re on a computer. If you’re on your iPhone, you can just paste it anywhere by clicking the usual share button… the square with the arrow coming out of it. I hope this helps lol
My question is why do they post it?
What if the second repeated letter is in the right place, but there’s only one? For instance, you guess PREEN, but the second E is in the right spot but there’s only one. Do you get a gray/black for the first E and a green for the second E or do you get a yellow for the first E and a gray/black for the second?
I found the answer by doing some archived Wordles. If you put in a word with a repeated letter but there is only one and the second one in your guessed word is in the correct spot, you will get a black for the first and a green for the second. So for instance if the Wordle was ALIEN and you guess PREEN, the first E is black and the second is green.
Thanks, Wendi. I had the same question and you saved me some trouble!
I just played a game with GREEN as the word and got a green E in the middle spot and a gold E in the second spot. I did not see this in the rules anywhere. Furthermore when the solution was found, the word was HELLO which does NOT have two Es. Love the game but it seems as if there are a few programing errors. My two cents.
I am wondering if that is what is happening to me with today’s word. First O is green, second is yellow, but according to the dictionary, there is NO 5-letter word with the letters OOR in the positions I have them. So I guess one of those O’s is not actually in the word. Frustrating.
…and now I see that the dictionary was wrong and wordle was right!
Owatonna color is the letter on the keyboard if there is a repeated letter? If one P (for apple) is in the correct spot and is green on the board, it would be green on the keyboard. If it is a double then any green key in the key board can be reused.
Yes a good rule of thumb is any green letter can be reused anywhere. So in the case of “elder” if you get the second e correct remember it might appear again.
I was wondering about double letters and you’ve answered that nicely (but I wish there were none).
Also, I am hoping you only use root words (eliminating plurals for nouns and tenses for verbs, so no “gifts” or “words” and no “loved” or “jumps”).
I’m 81 and I LOVE playing Wordle! I have loved “things-to-do books” since I could write, algebra problems in high school, and Jotto whenever I can get someone to play with me. Now I love daily and Sunday crossword puzzles, easy-to-medium sudokus, a Word Connect puzzle online, and Wordle (that I just discovered a week or so ago)! Glad I found his helpful site; thank you!
Sorry but plurals, past tenses etc ARE allowed
But same letter that appears twice in word gets green for second usage but black for first. This happened to me on “elder”. I only had green “e” in second placement: eldEr where the E was green but not first letter e.
I lost the game yesterday cause of ELDER. Had no idea that there were two E’s and I still don’t understand how to figure out if there are two double letters
I love wordle, and my question is whether words that begin with capital letters, such as people’s names, are allowed. (With me, they allowed Maria, but did not allow David)
I’m noting inconsistencies with the double letter thing. Sometimes it’ll pop the two letters yellow and that doesn’t mean the word has that letter twice.
There were times I also missed that a letter was in there twice because it appeared as gray.
Trying to figure it out. I’m new.
Youi are fine, there are just inconsistencies (programming errors) in the part about double letters. We are all having different experiences. The other parts of the game are good it sees, and I really love it. Too late though and I am tardy getting some sleep.
Perhaps it’s the game’s way of telling you that neither placement of the letter was correct. It couldn’t and shouldn’t color the 2nd placement as Black because it would be prevent learning that position was also not correct. If one had been in the correct position, the other would be black denoting there is indeed only one of said letter.
i think they should explain on the screen
whenever a letter is used twice
so that people don’t get confused about whether a letter is in the word or not
showing a green and black for the same letter is very confusing
and if you throw in a yellow for the same letter you have 3 different meanings
which is totally confusing.
someone should contact wordle and tell them to add an explanation on the screen
for letters being used more than once
When a litter is chosen that’s a double letter in the answer it should be shown as doubled!
If the secret word is NEEDY
and
I guessed EERIE
What be Wordle’s feedback
using * for correct letter in proper slot
using ! for a valid letter but in wrong spot
using & for letter not in word
!*&&!
OR
!*&&&
After re-reading the content on your website , I am pretty sure the answer would be !*&&& because the secret word only has 2 E’s