A Crisis comes to Wordle: Reusing old words
by cyanbane on 2/1/2026, 5:54:55 PM
https://forkingmad.blog/wordle-crisis/
Comments
by: trothamel
If I remember correctly, the original version of wordle used a word list that was run past the creator's wife, who had learned English later in life. The result was a really accessible game - none of the words felt like ones you wouldn't know. It probably makes sense to reuse words than risk losing that accessibility.<p>(I kept a copy of original wordle, and it seems to have 2,315 words that are possible answers.)
2/1/2026, 8:08:49 PM
by: angry_octet
At the risk of being accused of obscurantism, I would like to know more of the words on the 5-letter list that are excluded by Microsoft Word.
2/1/2026, 10:44:35 PM
by: furyofantares
"Crisis" is a massively overblown word for this. And the "wordle community" is a drop in the bucket of regular players, and not remotely representative.<p>I did have a similar reaction personally to the "exciting news" framing but I'm not actually sure it's wrong. The original list of words was an excellent list, and it's been over 4 years.
2/1/2026, 8:53:25 PM
by: hombre_fatal
1. Wordle's word list is going to be a lot more curated than TFA's word list because people want to guess words they use or have heard of, not "aahed".<p>2. Only a tiny group of people care to "card count" Wordle to rule out words that have already been played because they think that sort of min/maxing is fun. Most people don't even think about that, so whether Wordle reuses words every few years is trivial to them.
2/1/2026, 8:03:48 PM
by: huhtenberg
Seems like a good post to plug a recent find and my new favourite -<p><a href="https://puzzlist.com/stackdown" rel="nofollow">https://puzzlist.com/stackdown</a><p>It's from the person who made <a href="https://wafflegame.net" rel="nofollow">https://wafflegame.net</a> if you are familiar with it, one of many that came on the tails of the original Wordle.<p>In comparison, the Stackdown is less rushed and way more rewarding when solved. Also, more interesting in structure.
2/1/2026, 10:29:58 PM
by: BurningFrog
I'm surprised they weren't reusing words already.<p>Obviously a finite resource will run out after a while.
2/1/2026, 10:34:23 PM
by: sowbug
It seems about right. They reshuffled the deck about three-quarters of the way through (1689 ÷ 2315 = 72.9%). Blackjack shoes are typically shuffled around the same point. Different games, but similar considerations in this respect.
2/1/2026, 8:40:45 PM
by: pseudosavant
I've used my own tool (<a href="https://pseudosavant.github.io/ps-web-tools/wordle-solver/" rel="nofollow">https://pseudosavant.github.io/ps-web-tools/wordle-solver/</a>) for understanding how many words are left after each guess. It'll show hints if you want them too, but they are disabled by default. I like understanding how my guesses reduce the word space well (or not).<p>It uses the list of all of the words that can be in Wordle, and there are so many words I can't imagine anyone guessing. And I come from a family with large vocabularies.
2/1/2026, 10:03:14 PM
by: brikym
For my game redactle.net, I blacklist the Wikipedia article for 2 years. I figure there is a tradeoff between novelty and allowing the pool of articles to shrink. The Wikipedia vital level 4 category has 10k articles and probably half of them actually meet the criteria (length, number of languages etc) for making the cut.
2/1/2026, 8:40:02 PM
by: fercircularbuf
My friend and I labored over the word lists for our word game subletters.fun. We wanted the word pairs and at least one optimal path for each word pair to be from words on one list, which were simpler words that we would expect everyone to be familiar with. But players could use their own more advanced vocabulary to solve the puzzles on their own without feeling restricted. Then we bundled literally 10 years of unique word pairs into the game and shipped it.
2/1/2026, 10:05:04 PM
by: croisillon
is "valew" related to the Brazilian "valeu", expressing gratitude/satisfaction?
2/1/2026, 10:29:27 PM
by: geophile
The analysis misses a point. Wordle uses two lists of five letter words: words that are in the dictionary, and can be used in a guess; and those that can be used as the daily secret word. The latter list is smaller, and sticks to more common words. Wordle has been around for 1550 days, so they have used 67% of the possible words. In another couple of years, they have to either start using uncommon words, or recycle. There's no rush, so it's unclear why this is happening now.
2/1/2026, 9:18:33 PM
by: tuwtuwtuwtuw
I am guessing a high percentage of wordle players prefer a wordle version which uses common words, and New York Times would prefer cater to those, rather than a smaller group of enthusiasts.
2/1/2026, 8:02:07 PM
by: znkynz
Connections is better anyway.
2/1/2026, 8:14:51 PM
by: Aardwolf
Every now and then I play quordle, octordle, and once a thousand-word variation (which breaks down gameplaywise to just getting every letter at every spot).<p>A bit of reuse of the same word in the one-word version can't hurt I think
2/1/2026, 8:08:27 PM
by: arcfour
It doesn't beg the question, it raises it. Begging the question is a type of logical fallacy in which you assume the truth of your conclusion. It doesn't mean something "begs for the question to be asked."<p>I have no idea why this incorrect use of the term drives me so nuts; however, you'd think a blog post about English words and Wordle wouldn't make this mistake.
2/1/2026, 10:21:36 PM