Wordle Repeated Letter Rules

Repeated-letter feedback is a count-allocation problem. The scorer first marks every exact-position match green and consumes those copies from the answer. It then scans the remaining letters for yellow matches. Once every available copy has been consumed, extra copies in the guess are gray.

That order explains the apparently contradictory board where one E is green, another E is yellow, and a third E is gray. The gray tile does not mean “there is no E.” It means no additional unmatched E remains after the green and yellow copies have been assigned.

Example 1: LITTLE against LETTER

For answer LITTLE and guess LETTER, the feedback is:

The two non-gray T tiles prove T:2 as a minimum. The yellow E plus gray extra E proves exactly one E for this guess, so use minimum E:1 and maximum E:1 when filtering candidates.

Example 2: COFFEE against EFFEEE

Here, the Es at positions 5 and 6 are green. They consume both Es in COFFEE before misplaced letters are checked. The extra Es at positions 1 and 4 are therefore gray. The F at position 3 is green, while the F at position 2 is yellow because the other answer F remains available at position 4.

This feedback proves exactly two Es: enter minimum E:2 and maximum E:2. It also proves at least two Fs, so F:2 is a valid minimum. A future constraint may tighten F’s maximum, but this single guess does not.

Turn duplicate colors into solver constraints

Use a repeat-safe sequence:

1. Count every green and yellow tile for the letter. That count is the proven minimum.
2. If the same guess contains additional gray copies, set the maximum to the non-gray count.
3. Keep all green positions in the pattern.
4. Add every yellow position to that letter’s forbidden-position list.
5. Put a letter in Excludes only when no copy is confirmed and the feedback truly rules it out.

For example, one green A plus one gray A supports minimum A:1 and maximum A:1, not an A exclusion. Two yellow As support at least A:2, with both failed positions recorded. This prevents the common error of discarding a confirmed letter because an extra copy was gray.

What the demos do—and do not do

Both interactive examples accept any six A–Z letters so the rule can be inspected directly. They demonstrate feedback, not dictionary validity. Calculation happens locally in the browser; the entries are not submitted, stored, or added to either word pool.

Once the counts are clear, transfer the pattern, yellow bans, and min/max values to the six-letter candidate solver. For an empty board, use the separate starter-word experiment; starter efficiency and duplicate-feedback interpretation are different tasks.