Nerdle Glossary

All Terms#

Classic Nerdle

The original daily game: guess a hidden 8-character equation in 6 tries. It has exactly 17,723 possible answers. Rules in full in how to play Nerdle.

Green tile

This character is in the answer and in exactly this position. Greens never move.

Purple tile

This character is in the answer but in a different position — Nerdle's version of Wordle's yellow. It tells you what to keep and where not to put it.

Black tile

This character is not in the answer at all — or, if you played the same character twice, you used it more times than the answer contains.

Feedback pattern

The full row of colors a guess receives, e.g. green-black-purple… Our best opener produces 1,689 distinct patterns across all answers; each pattern has its own optimal reply, mapped in the second-guess guide.

Opener (starting equation)

Your first guess, chosen before any information exists — so the same opener is best every day. Our model's top openers are ranked in the strategy guide.

Probe guess

A guess played for information rather than as a winning attempt — sometimes an equation that provably cannot be the answer. Optimal play uses probes to split crowded fields; the strategy guide explains how they work.

Lone zero (standalone zero)

A zero standing alone as a number, like the 0 in 0+12=12. Equations containing one are valid guesses but never daily answers.

Guess-only equation

An equation you may enter but which can never be the answer. All 49,623 of them contain a lone zero. They make good probes.

Commutative answers

Nerdle's rule (on by default) that an order-swapped addition or multiplication wins: if the answer is 12+34=46, entering 34+12=46 counts as correct.

Order of operations

Multiplication and division evaluate before addition and subtraction, so 3+2*5=13 is valid and 3+2*5=25 is not. Nerdle enforces this on every guess.

Equals position

Where the = sign sits in the 8 slots — always position 5, 6, or 7, which correspond to a 3-, 2-, or 1-digit result. Position 6 is most common (59.3% of answers).

Expected remaining answers

The average number of possible answers that survive a guess's feedback — the score our solver uses to rank guesses. Explained with real numbers in how the solver works.

Expected total guesses

The average number of guesses a full game will take from a given move, assuming optimal play thereafter. The best opener achieves 3.05.

Decision tree

A precomputed map from every game state to the best next guess. Ours solves all 17,723 answers in at most 5 guesses — including the two hardest answers.

Nerdleverse

The official family of 20+ daily Nerdle games — Micro, Mini, Maxi, Speed, Instant, Pro, Bi Nerdle, Cross Nerdle, and more. Tour them all in the variants guide.

Mini / Micro / Maxi

The size variants: Mini is 6 characters, Micro is 5, and Maxi is 10 (with brackets and exponents). Classic sits between at 8.

Solver

A tool that takes your guesses and colors and computes the best next move. Ours walks the precomputed decision tree, so suggestions are instant — and it never knows the day's answer in advance.