6-letter word game. One letter more than the famous one, and considerably more annoying. Unlimited rounds.
Boss walking over? Hit Esc twice. Go on, try it.
Fine, show me some hints
If you want to win
- RETAIN then SHOULD. Twelve letters, no overlap.
- Work out the ending before the middle. -ER and -ED cover a fifth of the list.
Things this board does
- 68.6% contain an E.
- 52% repeat a letter, so half the time your instinct is wrong.
- -ER ends 11.9%, -ED 9.5%, -ING 5.6%.
If you want to lose slowly
- Spend guess four chasing one yellow. See you at guess six.
Today's riddle
Come back in a moment - this one loads with the page.
Answer goes up tomorrow. No cheating, it's in the source and I'll know.From Conundrums, Riddles and Puzzles, Penn Publishing Company, around 1900. Public domain, via Project Gutenberg. A new one every day, and 397 of them before it starts repeating.
About the 6-letter mode
Adding a sixth letter changes the game more than you would expect. The answer pool jumps to 977 words, letter patterns get richer (double letters, -ING and -ED endings, silent letters), and a careless opener can leave you drowning in possibilities. This is the mode for players who find the classic board a little too comfortable.
It is also the board where one habit from the shorter games stops working. At five letters you can usually assume every letter is different. Here you cannot: 52% of six-letter answers repeat a letter, up from 28.8% at five. Half the time, the word you are hunting uses some letter twice.
What the 6-letter answer list actually looks like
Two numbers dominate this board. The first is that repeat rate. The second is E: it appears in 68.6% of all answers, more than two words in every three, which makes it by far the most concentrated letter on any board we run.
| Measurement | Value | What to do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Answers containing E | 68.6% | Assume E is present until proven otherwise |
| Answers with a repeated letter | 52.0% | A gray letter elsewhere does not rule out a repeat |
| Answers ending -ER | 11.9% | The single most common ending |
| Answers ending -ED | 9.5% | Together with -ER, over a fifth of the list |
| Answers ending -ING | 5.6% | Worth testing once you see a trailing G |
The positional data is unusually lopsided. Slot five is E in 29.5% of answers - nearly a third - which is a direct consequence of those -ER, -ED and -EN endings. If you have a yellow E floating and no green yet, position five is where to try it first.
Endings generally carry most of the signal here: answers finish with E 17.5%, R 15.1%, D 13.7%, T 12.2% and Y 9.4% of the time. Beginnings are much weaker, with S leading at just 12.5%. The most common two-letter opening is RE- at 4.6%, reflecting how many six-letter words are re-prefixed verbs.
Across the list the highest-coverage letters are E (68.6%), R (46.1%), A (41.2%), T (36.5%) and then N and I tied at 35.1%.
Best opening words for 6 letters
The highest-coverage single openers are RETAIN, RENTAL, RETAIL, LINEAR and REASON - all built from the same E/R/A/T/N/I/L core.
The strongest two-guess opening on this board is RETAIN then SHOULD. The two share no letters at all, so between them they test twelve distinct letters and all five vowels. That is the most complete two-word opening available at any length on this site, and it is the reason the six-letter board rewards patience: spend both early guesses on coverage and the remaining four are usually enough. The word statistics page has the full breakdown.
6-letter mode FAQ
Is 6-letter harder than the classic game?
Yes, moderately. You have the same six guesses but one more position to resolve, and long-word patterns (double letters, common endings) can mislead. Most players' average creeps up by about one guess.
Do I still get only six guesses?
Yes. Six guesses at six letters is the classic balance for this variant - tight enough to sting, loose enough that a solid opener plus deduction usually gets there.
Any tips specific to 6 letters?
Watch the endings. -ER (11.9%), -ED (9.5%), -ING (5.6%) and -LY (3.5%) together account for roughly a third of the answer list. If your yellows cluster at the end of the word, testing a common suffix is usually better than testing a new stem.
Why do I keep missing 6-letter words with double letters?
Because the repeat rate more than doubles between five and six letters - from 28.8% to 52%. The instinct built on the classic board, that every letter is probably different, is simply wrong here. When you are stuck with three greens and no candidates, try repeating a letter you already know is in the word.
How big is the 6-letter guess list?
29,870 six-letter words are accepted as guesses, against 977 possible answers. That ratio is why coverage openers like RETAIN then SHOULD work so well: you can afford to spend guesses on words that could never be the answer.