How to play Common words

What is a Common words?

Common words is a word puzzle in which you find a hidden five-letter word from a pool of everyday English in six guesses, with each letter of a guess coloured to show whether it is placed correctly, present elsewhere, or absent.

Also known as: easy Wordle-style puzzle, beginner five-letter word game.

How do you solve a Common words?

1. 01

   Lean on frequency

   Because every answer is a common word, letter frequency is an even better guide here than usual. Open with a word made of the most frequent letters, such as one containing S, A, T, E and R, and expect the answer to be built from the same well-worn material rather than from rare consonants.

2. 02

   Think in whole words, not letter grids

   Once you have two or three letters placed, say the candidate words aloud rather than filling columns mechanically. With a pool of everyday words, the one that sounds ordinary is far more likely than the one that merely fits the letters.

3. 03

   Test vowels early

   Almost every common five-letter word has one or two vowels in predictable places. A first and second guess that between them cover A, E, I and O settle the skeleton of the word quickly, and the consonants that fit around known vowels are much easier to see.

4. 04

   Use the whole row

   Even when three letters are green, a guess that fixes those three and tries two new letters in the open columns is usually better than one that guesses the answer outright. If the new letters both come up grey you have eliminated two candidates at the cost of one row.

5. 05

   Remember the doubles

   Everyday words repeat letters often: think of words with a double L, double E or double S. If the remaining columns will not take any new letter, try doubling one you have already found. The board marks a letter only as often as it appears in the answer, so the result also tells you the count.

Common Common words mistakes

• Guessing obscure words to seem clever. The answer pool is common English, so an exotic guess spends a row testing letters that are unlikely to appear.
• Ignoring grey letters on the keyboard. The keyboard dims letters shown to be absent, and typing one again wastes the slot it occupies.
• Leaving a yellow letter in the same column. Yellow means the letter belongs somewhere else, so a guess that does not move it learns nothing about it.

Where does Common words come from?

The rules are those of the five-letter guessing game that Josh Wardle released as Wordle in 2021 and sold to The New York Times in 2022. What set that game apart from earlier guessing games was a curated answer list: only words most people would recognise were ever the answer, even though thousands more were accepted as guesses.

Common words is this site's own version of the type with that idea taken one step further. The answer pool is drawn from frequent everyday English rather than from the published answer list, so there are no obscure words, no archaic spellings and no surprises. It is the variation to learn the mechanics on before moving to Daily Five or the multi-board games.