Quick Word and Big Word: 4 and 6 Letters

Four letters: the vowel decides

Most four-letter words have exactly one vowel, and the vowel sits in the second or third position far more often than at the ends. So the opening question in Quick Word is not "which letters?" but "which vowel, and where?"

A good opener tests two vowels and two common consonants: RAIN, LOUD, SOLE, TEAM, MINE or ROTE. Ideally the two vowels sit in positions 2 and 3, where vowels most often live. If neither vowel marks, the word almost certainly uses the remaining vowels or Y: try a second opener such as BUSY or PONY.

With only five guesses, a scouting word is affordable once, not twice. By guess three you should be fitting candidates.

Short-word patterns worth knowing

• Consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (LAMP, SING, HALT) and consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant (FLAT, GRIP, SNOW) are the two most common shapes.
• Two-vowel words often pair them: RAIN, BOAT, FEEL, MOON, LIED. If one vowel marks as an arrow in position 2, think about a vowel pair.
• Y as a vowel: MYTH and HYMN have no other vowel, and BUSY, PONY, TIDY and ENVY end in Y. If two vowels miss, test Y.
• Close anagrams: STOP, SPOT, POTS, TOPS, POST. When two letters keep returning as arrows, swap their order before trying new letters.

Six letters: structure beats vowels

Six-letter words are long enough to have recognisable parts. A huge share of them are a shorter root with an ending: -ING (ASKING), -ED (WALKED), -ER (RUNNER), -LY (BARELY), -EST (WIDEST), -ION (NATION), -OUS (JOYOUS), -ISH (BOYISH); or a beginning: RE- (REPAIR), UN- (UNABLE), DE- (DEPART), IN- (INSIDE), EX- (EXPORT). The first job in Big Word is to find out whether the answer has one of these parts.

A good six-letter opener tests common letters in the positions where endings live: an E and R in positions 5 and 6, or N and G. Guesses may be any real word, including plurals and past tenses that are never answers, so SALTED, RAINED and STOLEN make useful probes. If E arrows or ticks in position 5 and D ticks in position 6, you are looking at a past tense and can spend the remaining guesses on the first four letters.

Reading six-letter marks

• Ticks at the end (positions 5 and 6) point at an ending. Fix it and solve the root.
• Ticks at the start point at a prefix or a consonant cluster (STR-, THR-, SPR-, CHR-).
• Arrows on vowels in the middle usually mean two vowels in positions 2 to 4: PO?E?? could be POLITE or POTENT; think about shapes before letters.
• Doubles are common at six letters: LETTER, BUTTER, SUMMER, HAPPEN, BALLOT. If a letter arrows twice across two guesses in different positions, it may appear twice.

Managing the guess budget

Quick Word gives five guesses, Big Word six, and the leaderboard ranks by fewest guesses, then time. Spend them like this:

1. Guess 1: a probe of common letters placed where they usually sit.
2. Guess 2: a second probe if guess 1 found little, otherwise the best-fitting candidate.
3. Guesses 3 and 4: fitting candidates, chosen to split the remaining words.
4. The last guess: the single most likely word. Never spend it on a probe.

Common mistakes

• Treating a four-letter word like a five-letter one. Fewer letters means fewer vowels; find the vowel first.
• Ignoring endings in Big Word. A word that ends in ED, ER or ING is half-solved once you see it.
• Guessing a candidate that shares every letter with another. CANT and PANT differ by one letter; a guess that tests C and P together (CHAP, COPE) resolves both.
• Forgetting that guesses may be plurals but answers rarely are. You can probe with an S at the end, but do not expect the answer to end in S.
• Running out of guesses on a double. When nothing fits, double a letter you already have.

Glossary

• Probe or scouting guess: a guess chosen to test letters rather than to win.
• Root: the core of a word before endings are added (WALK in WALKED).
• Anagram: a word made from the same letters in another order.
• Vowel pair: two vowels together (AI, OA, EE, OO).