AFTER DINGO YESTERDAY (21 May 2024), I started to wonder about what words are on the Wordle Answer List? I thought Dingo was a proper noun, and proper nouns can’t be used.
How did they get there? What criteria is used for them being there? I figured I might have gone with Dingo earlier if I had known. Probably not 🙂
Here’s what I discovered:
WORDLE HAS TWO LISTS:
- Answer List: All the words that can possibly be an answer. All of these will be in the other list, which is the:
- Guess List: which are words you can put in, to help you work out which letters work and don’t work. Note: not all letters on this list will be on the Answer List.
RULES FOR THE ANSWER LIST:
- There are no rules about what part of speech a Wordle answer can be, except that it CAN’T be a proper noun.
- Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions can be used as Wordle answers, as long as it’s a five-letter word.
- Wordle answers can be plural nouns, but not if they end in S or ES.
- Wordle answers can be past tense verbs, but not if they end in ED.
- Plural nouns and past tense words can be used as Wordle guesses (on the Guess List) even if they aren’t valid Wordle answers.
Hope that helps a bit?
BACK TO DINGO:Â Dingo is a common noun. Proper nouns refer to a very specific thing.
It can get confusing, and I’m still a little confused (although not as much) because Japan and China are common nouns and Korea is a Proper noun (you’ll have to read up on that yourself)