How to Find Five-Letter Words From Clues (Green, Yellow and Gray Letters)
Updated October 2026
After a few guesses in a five-letter word puzzle you know some letters and have ruled out others. Checking every possible word by hand is slow. A word finder keeps only the words that fit all your clues. This guide shows how to enter each type of clue and how to avoid the common mistakes.
Enter your clues in three steps
- Green: type each letter that is in the right place into its box.
- Yellow: under the position where a letter was marked yellow, type that letter. It must be in the word, but not in that place.
- Gray: type the letters that are not in the word into the last field.
What each clue means
- Right-place letter: the word has this letter at exactly this position.
- Misplaced letter: the word has this letter somewhere, but not at the position where you saw it. You can add the same letter under several positions if it was yellow more than once.
- Excluded letter: the word does not contain this letter at all, with one exception described below.
Repeated letters
When you guess a word with a repeated letter, one copy can be marked yellow or green and the other gray. That does not mean the letter is missing. It means the word has that letter exactly as many times as it was marked green or yellow.
Enter such a letter as green or yellow, and also in the gray field. The tool then allows exactly the number of copies you marked, no more.
If no words fit
- Check for a typo, such as a letter in the wrong box.
- Check that a letter is not in the gray field when it was green or yellow in another guess, unless it appeared twice in one guess.
- Remember that the puzzle may use an answer that is not in this word list.
Choosing your next guess
When many words are left, a guess that uses letters you have not tried yet tells you more than a guess that repeats letters you already know. Pick a word from the list that tests new letters, even if you think it is less likely to be the answer.
What a word finder cannot tell you
- It uses one large English word list. Word games have their own lists of accepted guesses and of answers, and these differ from it.
- Some words in the list are rare, and some valid answers may be missing.
- A word finder takes away part of the challenge. Use it when you are stuck or want to check an idea, not as the first step.
Privacy
The word list is downloaded to your browser once, and the filtering is done on your device. The letters you enter are not sent anywhere.