Phrazle takes Wordle’s colour feedback and applies it to a whole phrase — a saying, an idiom, a common expression — rather than a single word. It belongs to the constraint half of the daily puzzle family and it is the most linguistically demanding game in it, because knowing the letters is only half the problem: you also have to know the phrase. Solitaired released it in 2022 and it has run continuously since. The board above is playable here; if you prefer a puzzle with no letters and no way to lose, today’s Contexto ranks every guess by meaning.
What Phrazle is
A hidden phrase is shown as a set of blank tiles, grouped into words — you can see how many words there are and how long each one is before you start. You have six guesses. Each guess must fill every tile, so you are proposing a complete phrase each time, not a single word.
That structure is the whole design. Because the word lengths are visible from the start, Phrazle gives you more information up front than Wordle does, and then takes it away again by making the search space a phrase rather than a dictionary entry.
If you use all six guesses, the game reveals the phrase and you can start another immediately — new puzzles are published several times a day rather than once, which makes it closer to a puzzle feed than a daily ritual.
The third colour
Phrazle adds a feedback state no other game in this family has, and it is the thing to understand before your first round:
- Green — the letter is in that position, in that word. Same as Wordle.
- Yellow — the letter is in that word, but in a different position. Same as Wordle.
- Purple — the letter is somewhere in the phrase, but in a different word.
- Grey — the letter is not in the phrase at all.
Purple is what makes Phrazle its own game. In Wordle a letter is either in the answer or not; in Phrazle a letter can be in the answer, in the wrong word, and you have to work out which of the other words it belongs to. A single purple tile on a five-word phrase leaves four candidate homes for that letter, and the round often turns on narrowing that down rather than on finding new letters.
How to play Phrazle
- Read the shape first. Word count and word lengths are visible before you guess and they are real constraints — a 3-4-4 phrase is a very different search from a 2-6.
- Open with a common, letter-rich phrase that fits the shape rather than a clever one. You are buying coverage.
- Treat purple as a routing problem. Note which letters are in the phrase but homeless, and try to place them in the next guess.
- Use the shape to guess the grammar. A short first word is usually an article, a preposition or a pronoun; a two-letter word is almost always in, of, to, at, on, up, it or is.
- Say candidates out loud. Phrazle answers are idioms and set expressions, and they are far easier to recognise by sound than by staring at tiles.
Controls are plain typing: enter your phrase on any keyboard, physical or on-screen, and submit. There is nothing to learn beyond the colours.
Why it is harder than it looks
Phrazle is the game on this site most likely to defeat a strong Wordle player, for two reasons.
The first is that letter deduction stops being sufficient. You can know every letter in the phrase and still fail, because the letters have to be arranged into an expression that actually exists. That is a recall problem, not a logic problem, and no amount of systematic elimination substitutes for having heard the phrase before.
The second is cultural. Idioms are the most local part of a language. A phrase that is instantly obvious to an American player can be genuinely unknown to a British, Australian or Indian one, and vice versa. If a round feels impossible and the answer looks obvious in hindsight, that is usually the reason rather than a failure of method.
Both of those are also what make it worth playing. It is the only game in this group that rewards reading widely rather than thinking clearly, and it is very good practice for anyone learning English past the textbook stage.
Where you can play it
In a browser, on anything. The board above runs on desktop, laptop, tablet and phone, in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari, with nothing to install and no account. It is free, with no purchases of any kind.
Because it runs in the browser rather than as an app, it also works on the restricted school and office networks where app stores are blocked.
A note on the mobile apps: the Phrazle listings you will find on the app stores are third-party recreations rather than releases from Solitaired. They vary a lot in quality and advertising. The browser version is the real game, and it is the one embedded here.
Phrazle vs Contexto
| Contexto | Phrazle | |
|---|---|---|
| The answer | One word | A phrase of two to five words |
| What is measured | Meaning, as a rank out of ~30,000 | Letters, positions, and which word they belong to |
| Feedback colours | Green / orange / red by rank | Green / yellow / purple / grey |
| Guesses | Unlimited | Six |
| Can you lose? | No | Yes |
| What it really tests | Vocabulary breadth | Recall of set expressions |
The two are complementary rather than similar. Contexto asks what a word means and never cares how it is spelled; Phrazle cares intensely about spelling and position, and asks whether you have met the expression before. Playing both in a sitting exercises genuinely different parts of language knowledge.
If the multi-target structure is what appeals, Dordle runs two independent boards on seven shared guesses. If you want the same idea with one word and no fail state, the guide to Contexto’s ranking explains how a puzzle you cannot lose still manages to be hard.
Phrazle FAQ
How many guesses do I get? Six. If you use them all, the phrase is revealed and you can start a new one straight away.
What do the colours mean? Green is the right letter in the right place; yellow is the right letter in the wrong place within that word; purple means the letter belongs to a different word in the phrase; grey means it is not in the phrase at all.
Is it free? Yes, entirely, with no purchases.
Can I play on a phone? Yes, in the mobile browser. No app needed.
Is it suitable for children? The mechanic is simple enough for any age, but the answers are idioms — an adult vocabulary helps a great deal. Younger players tend to get more out of Dordle.
Is there a daily puzzle? Several a day, rather than one. It is a feed rather than a once-a-day ritual, which is the opposite of how Contexto’s daily board works.