Avoid Word Traps
Word families that trip people up in hard mode — groups of same-length words that share an ending, generated live from the word list.
Loading word list…
What Makes a Word a "Trap"?
In hard mode, every letter you've already found has to be reused in later guesses — you can't freely test new letters just to gather information. That's a problem when a whole family of words shares the same ending, like _IGHT (MIGHT, LIGHT, SIGHT, FIGHT, NIGHT, TIGHT, RIGHT). Once the ending is locked in, you're stuck guessing the one or two letters that actually differentiate the word, often with limited tries left.
Beating Hard Mode
Before hard mode locks you in, try to front-load guesses that probe common word endings — if you suspect a trap family, use a guess to test a couple of the most likely leading letters at once. This page groups every word trap in our dictionary by word length and ending, with a tip on which opening letters to try first based on how often they occur in that family.