The Fudgle word list

Fudgle draws answers from 2,333 words and accepts 11,549 as valid guesses. Here is exactly where they come from and why.

Two lists, not one

Every well-built word puzzle separates the words it can choose as answers from the words it will let you type. Fudgle does the same:

• 2,333 possible answers. Common, recognisable words only. Every one is frequency-checked against real-world usage data, so no obscure term can ever be the solution. Profanity and slurs are excluded.
• 11,549 accepted guesses. A deliberately permissive list, so legitimate words are not rejected while you are working. Words in this list are never used as answers.

For reference, Wordle uses roughly 2,315 answers against 12,972 accepted guesses. Fudgle is built to the same shape on purpose.

Australian and British spelling

Answers use Australian and British spelling. American spellings such as ARMOR and COLOR are accepted as guesses so nothing you type is wrongly rejected, but they are never the answer. That keeps the puzzle fair for players who spell either way.

How the answer list was filtered

Starting from the British base word list, we kept five-letter entries, removed proper nouns and possessives, folded accented characters to plain letters, and then applied a usage-frequency threshold. Words below the threshold were discarded regardless of whether a dictionary contains them. A dictionary is a record of the language; a puzzle needs a curated subset, and losing to a word nobody has heard of is not a fair loss.

Found a word we reject?

The accepted-guess list is permissive but not complete. If Fudgle rejects a word you are confident about, tell us and it will be considered for the next update. Rejections are the most useful feedback we get.

Licence and attribution

Word data is derived from SCOWL, the Spell Checking Oriented Word Lists. We reproduce the required notices in full:

The collective work is Copyright 2000–2019 by Kevin Atkinson.

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell these word lists, the associated scripts, the output created from the scripts, and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. Kevin Atkinson makes no representations about the suitability of this array for any purpose. It is provided “as is” without express or implied warranty.

Since the original word lists come from the Ispell distribution: Copyright 1993, Geoff Kuenning, Granada Hills, CA. All rights reserved.

Accent information was taken from the UK Advanced Cryptics Dictionary: Copyright © J Ross Beresford 1993–1999. All Rights Reserved.

Fudgle does not use the Collins Scrabble Words list, the NASPA word list, or any Oxford dictionary data. Those are separately licensed commercial products and are not part of this game.