Wordle fans, cast your square-addled minds back to sometime last week when the Wordle of the day was “PRICK”. Did you doubt yourself? Did you forget that the word “prick” has a legitimate meaning that’s neither an insult nor an old-fashioned word for penis? You, my friend, might have a dirty mind, and that mind will probably enjoy Lewdle.
As you might have guessed, Lewdle is a lovingly filthified tribute to the massively popular daily word game that’s taken the internet by storm. While you might associate the profane, the scatological, and the erotic more closely with four-letter words, there is no shortage of five-letter options to fill out the exclusively naughty word list. (There is a four-letter cursing-based version called Sweardle — of course, it’s a fair bit easier, so you only get four guesses.)
Lewdle was created by Gary Whitta, a screenwriter who’s worked on Rogue One, the Walking Dead games and Star Wars Rebels. Unlike some people who have jumped on the bandwagon, Whitta graciously notes on Twitter that his game is a blatant knockoff, and also inserts a note in your shareable results directing people to go and play the original.
An extra challenge is found in the fact that while you may be able to think of a valid five-letter English word that can be dirty, it might not have made it onto the word list. And because all your guesses have to be on the list, you can’t just chuck your go-to clean-Wordle starter in there to unearth some handy vowels — mine, ARISE, could be useful in an especially florid sext (ugh), but that doesn’t make it inherently dirty.
If you do think a word should be in there, though, Whitta is informally taking submissions via his Twitter replies, and told at least one player that the team is “constantly adding to” the list.
The same quirks and habits that trip you up during regular Wordle happen here too. On my fourth guess today, I stared at my three green letters, DIL, for far too long — I tried DILFS, which was deemed either not dirty enough or not-a-real-word enough to make the word list — before remembering that letters can appear more than once in a word. (Don’t worry, no spoilers here — the game refreshes at midnight ET, and DILDO is no longer the solution you’re looking for. In this one respect, at least.)
In the interests of thoroughness, I tested out some dirty words on Wordle itself, for science. (On my desktop, naturally, so as not to risk the undefeated streak sitting pretty in my phone browser.) I’m delighted to report that my six guesses — BOOBS, FARTS, DILDO, DICKS, FUCKS, and TITTY — were all valid, if not correct. So even if you tire of Lewdle’s spicy but inevitably limited possibilities, it’s also entirely possible that one day Wordle’s enigmatic coloured squares will present you with a puzzle only your dirty mind can solve.
