A simple approach
How LikelyWord helps you solve
LikelyWord combines flexible letter matching with word-frequency ranking. That means the answers people actually use tend to appear before rare possibilities.
Anagram solver and unscrambler mode
Enter the letters available to you. A question mark can stand for any one letter. Set a minimum word length, or switch on “Use every letter” when you need a full anagram.
Crossword helper mode
Enter one character for every square. Use the letters already on the board and replace every unknown square with a question mark. The result must match both the known letters and the total length.
Common answers first
Results are ordered with the help of SUBTLEX-US frequency data, a list based on the language used in American film and television subtitles. Frequency is a useful guide to familiarity, but it does not decide whether a word is valid in a particular game.
Why some words carry a *
Our frequency data comes from subtitles, and it stores every word in lower case. That means Steve, Chicago and Tuesday arrive looking exactly like ordinary words, and they were appearing in our lists unmarked. A name in a list of Wordle candidates is worse than useless — Wordle answers are never names.
So a word carries a * when two things are both true: it is capitalised in our source, and it is absent from a general English dictionary. In practice that catches names, places, brands, days, months and abbreviations.
We describe the mark that way — capitalised in our source and not in a standard dictionary — rather than calling it a proper noun, because that is precisely what we can verify. Two honest consequences of that choice:
- Some names are missed. PARIS, TEXAS and CHINA appear in the dictionary we check against, so the mechanical test passes them. We add well-known cases like these by hand, but the list will never be complete.
- Some marked words are not names. MR, MRS, DR, TV and OK are abbreviations, not proper nouns. The mark is still telling you something true and useful: no game is going to accept them either.
The word list, the build script and the reasoning behind both are in the repository, so anyone who thinks a particular word is wrongly marked can check for themselves.
Hints instead of answers
Turn on Give me hints when you want help without immediately seeing the answer. Each step reveals a little more: length, first letter, last letter, vowel count and finally the word.