Chainle Word Rules: What Counts as a Valid Answer
One English word per turn, and the boundaries are wider — and narrower — than most players expect.
On this page
The basic format
An answer is one English word of 2 to 28 letters, with no spaces, hyphens, apostrophes or other punctuation. Despite the name, Chainle has no fixed five-letter rule — short words like “key” and long entries are both valid, as long as they are single words within the scoring vocabulary.
Word forms and spelling variants
The scoring system recognises common word forms and selected British and American spellings. Two official examples:
- “leaves” = “leaf” — an inflected form is read as its base word.
- “colour” = “color” — selected British/American spellings map onto each other.
In practice this means you should type the form that feels natural; the system normalises it. Word forms and senses are handled through WordNet 3.0, and the scoring vocabulary contains 100,000 dictionary-filtered words.
Entries that do not use your turn
Three kinds of entry are rejected without consuming your turn:
| Entry | Example | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Outside the vocabulary | an obscure or invented word | rejected, turn not used |
| Empty answer | submitting nothing | rejected, turn not used |
| Repeat of a clue | answering “piano” when “piano” is a clue | rejected, turn not used |
The last row has an important extension: repeating a clue or its inflected form does not count as a new answer. If “leaf” is a clue, “leaves” is treated as a repeat, not as a fresh attempt at the round.
Typos are still answers
If your typo happens to be another valid word, it is scored like any other answer. There is no undo based on “what you meant” — the system scores the word you typed. Type deliberately, especially when two real words are one keystroke apart.
What the vocabulary covers
The 100,000-word vocabulary is dictionary-filtered, so invented words and multi-word phrases fall outside it. An outside-vocabulary entry costs you nothing but your time, so it is always safe to probe — but the probes that count are real, common words.
Recognized answers — the featured word plus selected alternatives — earn the full 1,000 points. Words outside that list are scored by estimates of their connection strengths, and in the current rules those estimates can reach the full 1,000 as well.
Quick reference
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Length | 2–28 letters |
| Characters | letters only; no spaces, hyphens or punctuation |
| Five-letter rule | none |
| Form variants | common forms supported (“leaves” = “leaf”) |
| Spelling variants | selected British/American (“colour” = “color”) |
| Rejected, turn not used | outside vocabulary, empty answer, repeat of a clue or its inflected form |
| Scored anyway | a typo that is another valid word |
If an answer was accepted but scored lower than expected, the cause is usually in the scoring, not the rules — see the guide to low scores.