Chainle hints in three tiers
Hints on each round come in three tiers. Tier one names the link and the narrower clue. Tier two gives the listed pick's letter count. Tier three gives only the first letter. A click asks the server then. Those letters are not in this HTML, so viewing source will not reveal the answer.
The three buttons under each number are the shape, the length, and the initial, in that order.
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Chainle hints do not spend the guess
Opening a tier spends nothing and changes no points. The scorer runs only on a recognized answer. A blank entry, a non-English string, or a repeated clue stays open. A real answer, listed or not, spends the round. How scoring works covers the floor, the 900 cap, and the 40 fallback. That code never subtracts points for reading hints.
- Hints tier 1, before you type: two-clue bridge, three-clue bridge, or closest connection, plus the narrower clue. Loving only the easier clue is the usual miss.
- Hints tier 2, after a candidate: letter count of the listed pick. Wrong length can still be a fair association, since several answers score.
- Hints tier 3: one letter, not the answer.
How Chainle hints read a clue
Say the clue aloud beside a candidate. Keep a phrase fluent speakers already use. Drop a phrase invented for the puzzle. Two-clue bridges need both phrases. Three-clue bridges let the third clue veto a pretty pair. Closest connections want a near synonym, not a roommate of the clue.
The public example is piano + lock → key. Piano key and lock key are both ordinary. An answer that only fits the piano, and says nothing about a lock, is the weaker link. Harbor + pier → dock is the same shape: the ship ties up at a dock, and the pier is built to reach one. Velvet's listed pick in the classroom pair is satin. Textile is not listed; the vectors place it at 462, inside 300–599. Paperback is in the dictionary and missing from the vector table, so it scores 40, the fallback, not the floor. Those answers are lessons. They are not today's set.
Ladder + climb → rung, wizard + spell → wand, astronaut + helmet → visor, and potter + kiln → glaze are further public bridges. Tofu + soy + bean → curd is the three-clue example. Fragile → brittle is the closest connection, and delicate is a neighbor that names fineness more than breaking. Use them to practice the spoken test. Then come back to the board on this page, which is the set for the current UTC date.
Past dates, after the day has passed
Today's strongest listed words stay off this page. When a UTC date has passed, that date's page in the archive writes the listed links and why they hold. Every past date is reached from the month index. A replay does not move the daily streak. How to play Chainle walks the five-round shape with the classroom set if you want the pattern before you spend a guess.
No solver here, and these hints are not another game's answer list. This site writes its own puzzles. Hints above belong to the visible board. If hints fail to load, the guess stays open and the score stays put. The hints panel never spends a guess. Hints for a past day live on that date's page. Read hints after both clues. Hints stop at one letter. Share the result, not the hints. The buttons under the five rounds are Chainle hints for today's board.
Chainle hints from classroom pairs
Rehearse the three tiers on pairs that will never be today's puzzle. Start with piano and lock. Direction would call it a two-clue bridge and would point at lock if your candidate only names a musical key. The letter count would say the listed pick has three letters. The first letter would be K. You still have to supply key yourself, and you should still check that lock key is ordinary English. Harbor and pier follow the same drill. A pier is a walkway; a dock is where the ship ties up and where that walkway leads. If the letter count says four and your candidate is jetty, keep looking: jetty may be a fair neighbor, but it is not the classroom answer.
Velvet and satin are the partial-band lesson. Satin is the listed pick. Textile belongs in the same cupboard and scores 462, which is inside 300–599, so a first letter of S is not a promise that every S answer is 1,000. Paperback is the fallback lesson: it is a real dictionary entry, it is missing from the vector table, and it scores 40. A letter-count nudge will not match paperback on the piano-and-keyboard classroom pair, because 40 is what an unlisted, unplaced answer earns, not a listed floor.
The rest of the classroom set works the same way. After piano and lock, Chainle hints for today's board are the buttons under the live set. Ladder and climb point at rung. Wizard and spell point at wand. Astronaut and helmet point at visor. Potter and kiln point at glaze. Tofu, soy, and bean have to be satisfied together by curd; a pretty pair that ignores bean is the miss the direction tier is for. Fragile points at brittle. Delicate names fineness more than breaking, so a closest-connection nudge that starts with B is not an invitation to type delicate and hope. Run that spoken test, then come back to the live board.
What Chainle hints will not print
Which tier should I open first?
Open direction first. It names the shape and, when there are two or three clues, which clue is narrower. That is the side players skip. Letter count is useful after you already have a candidate and want to know whether it can be the listed pick. The first letter is the last nudge. None of those tiers spends the guess.
What if the length disagrees with my guess?
Keep the guess if both clues still sound like ordinary English. Several answers can score. The letter count describes the listed pick, not the only legal one. A shorter or longer neighbor can land in 600–899 or in 300–599. Submit it if you believe the link, or look again if one clue was only a topic. Length is a check, not a lock.
What do the hints refuse to print?
The page is built before the day is over, and it is cached. Writing the listed pick into it would publish today's result to anyone who views source. The click asks the server, the server checks that the date is today, and the deepest reply is one letter. Past dates already have their explanations in the archive. Future dates are not generated.
Do the buttons work on yesterday's puzzle?
No. They belong to the UTC date of the board above, and they refuse yesterday and tomorrow. When a date has passed, open that date in the archive and read the explanation there. A replay on the date page does not move the streak. The buttons are for the board you can see. The archive is for every earlier date.
Are these another site's hints?
No. They are not chainle.io's hints and not a solver. Chainle.me writes its own puzzles. Direction, letter count, first letter. There is no fourth tier. The guess you type is the only thing the scorer sees.