The latest social-media craze is Wordle, the simple game where you have six guesses to match the game’s five-letter word. Five green squares means you’ve succeeded, and can rack up likes on Twitter and Facebook. But there are at least three simple ways to cheat at Wordle—including a way to discover Wordle’s word in advance for the next days or weeks. We have Wordle spoilers!
Updated on Feb. 11: The New York Times has purchased Wordle for an undisclosed amount in the “seven figures,” according to a NYT story on the subject. So far, the paper hasn’t changed the Wordle site, leaving the methods of cheating unchanged. On Feb. 10, we reviewed the Wordle site’s code (which is now located at the NYT at https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html) and found that while the NYT has added some additional code and wrappers, the fundamental Javascript remains unchanged and unrandomized. You can see that the new Wordle site simply uses a NYT-ish font at the top, but leaves the design unchanged. Reportedly, however, users are reporting problems with the continuity of their existing win streaks.
BoingBoing has noticed that the future Wordle solutions have now diverged from the original Wordle site code, with some “ruder” answers removed. But you can still find the answers in the site code.
We have new Wordle spoilers, below, updated on Feb. 14. And yes, you can argue that they’re getting harder, as there are a few more instances of duplicated letters in the Wordle solutions.
We’re not trying to ruin Wordle, which has become a fun activity for millions. But we couldn’t really ignore a Wordle hack that is literally right under your nose. And if you want to one-up a friend who is constantly bragging about their Wordle prowess, well….It’s really no different than the Pokemon Go maps of a few years ago, is it?
How to beat Wordle using WordHippo
Let’s start with Wordle 213, whose solution stumped Twitter. Many people discovered that the first three letters were P-R-O…and then absolutely failed to guess the last two letters, X and Y. Naturally, Wordlers probably considered more common words like “proud” and “prowl” first. But what words would make sense?
Mark Hachman / IDG
Enter WordHippo, a nifty little tool that allows you to select words with different characteristics. The link leads to “five-letter words beginning with PRO,” but the page includes an advanced word search of varying length, with a selection of letters that you decide, and in varying configurations. As you start ruling out letters, the site can give you a smaller and smaller pool of potential words to guess from. Using WordHippo isn’t necessarily a Wordle “cheat,” per se, but it’s close.
How to fake a Wordle win
You’ve had a bad day. You just want a quick Wordle win to make you feel good and to receive a few virtual pats on your back.
Mark Hachman / IDG
If you happen to win Wordle, great. But if you lose, Wordle will print the solution at the top of your screen. Simply open Wordle in Google Chrome’s Incognito Mode or the Microsoft Edge InPrivate mode, complete the puzzle (or not) and note the winning word. Then close the Incognito / InPrivate mode and play Wordle in your browser, with all of your cookies enabled. You’ll win Wordle, preserve your winning streak, and gain the approval of your friends.
How to hack Wordle: Find out tomorrow’s Wordle word
The final way of cheating at Wordle is much more insidious. Are you ready for the twist? All of the Wordle answers are already in Wordle.
Josh Wardle, who designed Wordle, clearly didn’t want to spend every day re-uploading a new puzzle, so he simply placed all of the solutions within the puzzle’s code. Since the Wordle puzzles refresh once per day, that means there are potential answers for a long, long time.
Specifically, the Wordle answers can be found within the Javascript that accompanies the Wordle site. (We didn’t discover this trick ourselves, but were tipped off to its existence by a source who wishes to remain anonymous.) Want to know the Wordle answers for tomorrow, the next week, or for the next few months or years? Here’s how to do it.
Mark Hachman / IDG
First, use Google Chrome to open the Wordle website. Using the Chrome “ellipsis menu” in the upper right, scroll down to More tools>Developer tools. The site contains a few Javascript files, though you can eliminate the Google tag manager and the index.
Instead, open the file underneath the index, which on the page I loaded was main.bd4cb59c.js. Yes, you’ll see a ton of code, much of which isn’t worth poking through. The solutions, however, are hidden in an array file, in plaintext. You can use Chrome’s “pretty print” feature, which should appear in a button at the top of the page. Otherwise, you can simply copy the entire text block into a text editor, or just something like Word.
There are a number of GitHub pages that have tried to calculate the methods of determining the next entry in the Wordle word list, like this one. But it seems that the Wordle site has already calculated the list of Wordle solutions for the next few months—because they’re right there in the source code. The easiest way to find that list is to simply look for the words that were the most recent solution. (We’ve tracked this for a day or two before publishing and it seems like the pattern has been consistent.) Simply do a Ctrl+F search for the most recent solution, then go to the next word in the list. That’s it!
Wordle spoilers: The next Wordle words
Spoilers ahead. If this pattern holds true, then here are the Wordle solutions for the next week. Remember, a new Wordle game goes live at midnight based on your time zone, so Wordle games may already be live in other regions of the world. Changing your PC’s clock to a day or two in advance doesn’t seem to make a difference—in other words, you can’t play a new round of Wordle early.
Monday, Feb. 14: CYNIC (Wordle #240)
Tuesday, Feb. 15: AROMA (Wordle #241)
Wednesday, Feb. 16: CAULK (Wordle #242)
Thursday, Feb. 17: SHAKE (Wordle #243)
Friday, Feb. 18: DODGE (Wordle #244)
Saturday, Feb. 19: SWILL (Wordle #245)
Sunday, Feb. 20: TACIT (Wordle #246)
Is Wordle ruined?
Of course not. There’s nothing preventing you from walking a golf course with a ball in your pocket, dropping it in the hole, and claiming a hole-in-one on every hole. If you want to play the game honestly, you can. If you don’t, you don’t. All this does is invalidate the online braggadocio about who’s better at Wordle. And let’s face it: All the developer (and now the New York Times would have to do is to randomize the solution every day to make this Wordle hack untenable.
In other words, just like a friendly game of cards, you can still play Wordle with friends, or to challenge yourself. Just be suspicious of anyone who finds the solution a little too easily. And as David Letterman says: Remember, no wagering!
This story was updated on Feb. 15 to add some additional upcoming words and note that future solutions have diverged from the original code.
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As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news and chip technology, among other beats. He has formerly written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.