In Pairdle every tile is two letters, and each box in the answer row takes one tile. After a guess, a blue tile is the right pair in the right box, a red tile is in the word but in a different box, and a grey tile is not in the word at all.
Jump to: Standard, Pro, Expert.
Pairdle Standard: HEROIC
Twelve tiles, three boxes, solved in three guesses.
Sunday's Pairdle board had twelve tiles and three boxes, so the answer had six letters. The tiles could spell five words: ENTICE, HEROIC, SOFTEN, SOFTER and TRIVIA. Four of them are on the board. SOFTEN is the odd one out. It borrows SO and FT from SOFTER and EN from ENTICE.
The first guess was SOFTEN, the trap. SO, FT and EN all came back grey, and grey tiles leave the board. With SO and FT gone, SOFTER was out too, and with EN gone, so was ENTICE.
That left TRIVIA and HEROIC. The second guess was TRIVIA, and TR, IV and IA all went grey.
Only HEROIC was left: HE, RO and IC. All three blue. Three guesses.
Every word the Standard tiles could spell
The board is built from four words. Any other word the same tiles can spell is a trap: it looks right, but it was never on the board.
- ENTICE, on the board
- HEROIC, the answer
- SOFTEN, trap word (not on the board)
- SOFTER, on the board
- TRIVIA, on the board
Shout-outs to the one-guess winners are in the video.
Pairdle Pro: CLIMATIC
Sixteen tiles, four boxes, solved in three guesses.
The Pro board had sixteen tiles and four boxes, so the answer had eight letters. The tiles could spell six words: CLIMATES, CLIMATIC, LECTURES, PREVIEWS, PRIMATES and WESTWARD. Two of those, CLIMATES and PRIMATES, are traps. They share IM and AT with the answer, which is what makes them look so right.
The first guess was WESTWARD. WE, ST, WA and RD all came back grey.
The second guess was PRIMATES. PR and ES went grey, but IM and AT turned blue, so the answer has IM in the second box and AT in the third.
CLIMATES fits that pattern, but it needs the ES tile, which had just gone grey and left the board. The only other word with IM and AT in those boxes is CLIMATIC. CL went in the first box and IC in the last. All four blue. Three guesses.
Every word the Pro tiles could spell
The board is built from four words. Any other word the same tiles can spell is a trap: it looks right, but it was never on the board.
- CLIMATES, trap word (not on the board)
- CLIMATIC, the answer
- LECTURES, on the board
- PREVIEWS, on the board
- PRIMATES, trap word (not on the board)
- WESTWARD, on the board
Shout-outs to the one-guess winners are in the video.
Pairdle Expert: PEDESTRIAN
Twenty tiles, five boxes, solved in three guesses.
The Expert board had twenty tiles and five boxes, so the answer had ten letters. The tiles spelled four words: EMBODIMENT, FILMMAKERS, INDULGENCE and PEDESTRIAN. There were no traps, so every tile belonged to one of those four words, and the only question was which one was the answer.
The first guess was FILMMAKERS. FI, LM, MA, KE and RS all came back grey. One word gone.
The second guess was INDULGENCE, and IN, DU, LG, EN and CE went grey as well. That left two words, EMBODIMENT and PEDESTRIAN, with nothing on the board to tell them apart.
The third guess was PEDESTRIAN: PE, DE, ST, RI and AN. All five blue. Three guesses, and a bit of luck on the last one.
Shout-outs to the one-guess winners are in the video.
Play today's puzzle
A new board goes up every day at midnight Pacific time. Play today's Pairdle. If you want a method for finding the answer faster, read how to solve Pairdle column by column, and for the full rules see how to play Pairdle.