How to play Polygonle

The rules

Before you guess anything you are shown a row of shapes, one for each letter of the answer. Positions carrying the same shape hold the same letter, and positions carrying different shapes hold different letters. Which letters, it does not say. Guess a real word of that length and the tiles answer as any wordle does: green where the letter is exactly right, yellow where it belongs somewhere else, grey where it is not in the word at all. The shape is a skeleton rather than a hint — it will not tell you a single letter, but it rules out most of the dictionary before you have typed anything, so the game is less about finding a foothold and more about finding the word that fits. Every answer repeats a letter somewhere, because a word whose letters are all different would give a row of shapes that says nothing.

Play today's Polygonle →

What is a Polygonle?

Polygonle is a word puzzle in which you find a hidden six-letter word in six guesses, starting from a row of shapes that shows which positions of the answer share a letter, with each guess then coloured green, yellow or grey in the usual way.

Also known as: shape Wordle, six-letter pattern word game.

How do you solve a Polygonle?

  1. 01

    Read the shape before you type

    Count the distinct shapes and note where the repeats fall. Two matching shapes at positions one and four is a very different skeleton from a pair side by side at positions three and four. The repeated positions usually hold a vowel or a common consonant, and the shape has already ruled out most six-letter words.

  2. 02

    Guess a word with the same shape

    Your guess does not have to match the pattern, but a guess that does is testing the right structure. If the skeleton shows a double letter in the middle, open with a word that has a double letter there: a green on the pair confirms the letter, a yellow places it elsewhere, and either way the repeat is settled.

  3. 03

    Put a likely letter on the repeat

    The repeated positions are where most of the information is, because one letter accounts for two or more squares. Try E, A, O, S, L, R or T there first, in that rough order, and let the single-shape positions carry your remaining test letters.

  4. 04

    Use the extra column

    Six letters give you one more tile per row than a five-letter game, so a two-guess opening can cover twelve letters. Pick two openers of the right shape that share no letters, and the third row is usually the one that names the word.

  5. 05

    Cross-check against the skeleton in the endgame

    When a few candidates fit the colours, discard any whose repetition pattern does not match the shapes exactly. A word that repeats the right letter in the wrong two positions is not the answer, however well its colours fit.

Common Polygonle mistakes

  • Ignoring the shapes and playing a normal opener. The skeleton has already removed most of the dictionary, and a guess with all-different letters cannot test the repeat the shapes have handed you.
  • Placing the same letter on two positions with different shapes. Different shapes mean different letters, so that guess contradicts what you already know.
  • Forgetting the count rule. A letter you use twice is marked only as often as the answer contains it, which matters more here because every answer has a repeat.

Where does Polygonle come from?

Polygonle appeared in 2022, one of many games that kept the daily-word structure of Josh Wardle's 2021 Wordle and added a single new clue. Its clue is the answer's skeleton: one polygon per letter, with matching shapes standing for matching letters. The shapes never say which letters, only which positions are the same.

This site's Polygonle is its own implementation of that puzzle type. Answers are six letters long and always repeat at least one letter, because a word with six different letters would draw six different shapes and tell you nothing. Six-letter words repeat a letter about half the time, which is why the game is six letters rather than five.

How many guesses do you get in Polygonle?

Six, with six tiles per row. The shape clue is a strong opening, so the extra row a longer word might otherwise deserve is already paid for.

Is Polygonle free, and when does the puzzle change?

Polygonle is free and needs no sign-up. A new word and its shape are set every day at midnight UTC, and there is a timed mode in which you solve as many as you can against the clock. An account is only needed for the leaderboard. It plays on a phone as well as a desktop.