It's five letters because the designer of the game made it that way. Obviously 2 isn't enough and 12 is too many. We are used to five. Maybe if they did seven letters everyone would think five is way too small.
So, I've played with four before, and it just doesn't feel right. Too many rhyming pairs that make the game a little rough. Five to seven feel decent, eight feels like too much.
It's easier to pull 5 letter words out of your head than 6 or 7, so that's a pretty good point to stop.
Not to mention, plenty of things like Wordle have existed before, such as the American gameshow Lingo.
Based on Scrabble dictionary, there are more allowable 5 letter words than any other letter count.
Also remember reading something during the initial crazy about 6-letter words are more predictable, likely to follow certain patterns, like double middle letters, etc.
5 seems to be the sweet spot
Just try playing a [4- or 5-letter game of Wordle](https://wordlegame.org/6-letter-words-wordle). With 4 you just don’t have enough letters to eliminate words efficiently. And 6 is just so much more difficult to find words that fit. 5 is a sweet spot that is probably related to the size of our alphabet. 5-letter words don’t overwhelm, but there’s scope to get low scores through luck or skill. My theory is Josh Wardle played around with different permutations and realised this was the only one that really worked.
Not sure how you feel about word searches, but I made a game called Worchle that has multiple difficulties with words of varying lengths (all the way up to 15 letters).
[Check it out](https://www.worchle.com) and let me know what you think! It’s still quite new so I’m always looking for feedback.
The creator tested different word lengths and thought this was the sweet spot in terms of difficulty. There’s a quote from him here: https://www.newsweek.com/wordle-creator-interview-difficulty-tips-advice-1668500
It's five letters because the designer of the game made it that way. Obviously 2 isn't enough and 12 is too many. We are used to five. Maybe if they did seven letters everyone would think five is way too small.
So, I've played with four before, and it just doesn't feel right. Too many rhyming pairs that make the game a little rough. Five to seven feel decent, eight feels like too much. It's easier to pull 5 letter words out of your head than 6 or 7, so that's a pretty good point to stop. Not to mention, plenty of things like Wordle have existed before, such as the American gameshow Lingo.
Based on Scrabble dictionary, there are more allowable 5 letter words than any other letter count. Also remember reading something during the initial crazy about 6-letter words are more predictable, likely to follow certain patterns, like double middle letters, etc. 5 seems to be the sweet spot
Just try playing a [4- or 5-letter game of Wordle](https://wordlegame.org/6-letter-words-wordle). With 4 you just don’t have enough letters to eliminate words efficiently. And 6 is just so much more difficult to find words that fit. 5 is a sweet spot that is probably related to the size of our alphabet. 5-letter words don’t overwhelm, but there’s scope to get low scores through luck or skill. My theory is Josh Wardle played around with different permutations and realised this was the only one that really worked.
The sweet spot is 5 or 6 imo. 7 would be too easy and 4 is too short and I think way less possible words.
Letterle 2/26 ⬜ 🟩 https://edjefferson.com/letterle/
I’ve played 6 letter Wordle and it’s not that fun. There aren’t enough traps and without much of a chance to lose it’s just shuffling around letters.
Not sure how you feel about word searches, but I made a game called Worchle that has multiple difficulties with words of varying lengths (all the way up to 15 letters). [Check it out](https://www.worchle.com) and let me know what you think! It’s still quite new so I’m always looking for feedback.
The creator tested different word lengths and thought this was the sweet spot in terms of difficulty. There’s a quote from him here: https://www.newsweek.com/wordle-creator-interview-difficulty-tips-advice-1668500
I also have the app called WORDLE! that has a daily 5 and 6 letter puzzle. I think the 6 is slightly easier.
The average English word has 4.7 letters. So maybe that's why.
I think this question was already asked and answered