Guess my word!

I'm thinking of an uncapitalized English word, which you can try to guess. I'll tell you if my word is before or after your guess in alphabetical order. My word can be of any length from 1 to 15 letters. If my word starts with your word (e.g. my word is "cottage" and you guess "cot"), then it is considered to be after your word. You can only guess English words. The goal is to guess my word in as short a time as possible, or in as few guesses as possible, or whatever else you want to set as your goal. For leaderboard purposes, your time (starting when you make your first guess) and number of guesses will be tracked, but entering your name on the leaderboard is optional. There will be a new word every day.

This game has words chosen by joon. You might also want to try to guess words chosen by: mike

This word was updated on 09:00 Eastern, 2/22/2012. This game has been played 158 times today. View the FAQ, or the leaderboard.

New features:

2/13/12: There seem to have been slight delays in getting the word reset today and yesterday, but I can't figure out what went wrong, and anyway, the reset did happen, just 25 or so minutes late. If it persists I'll try harder to figure out what's going on.
12/9/11: There have been problems in the last couple of days that have caused the reset script not to run automatically at 9 am. I have been running the reset manually and will continue to do so until I can figure out what's wrong. Sorry for the inconvenience.
10/27/11: I've added a link from the leaderboard to construct a word cloud formed by all of the guesses for that word, courtesy of Wordle. A word cloud is a graphical representation in which the font size of a word is proportional to the number of times it was guessed.
10/7/11: Okay, I'm ditching the Facebook page, since they've announced that they'll be cutting discussion functionality at the end of the month. Instead, I'm starting a new (content-free!) blog, on which you'll be able to comment on the day's words. It'll autopost every day so that each day's words will get its own thread. (I'm not going to separate my word and Mike's word into different posts.)
9/1/11: Mike's queue ran out again, and he's out of contact for a few days, so I cut and pasted a few of my words into his queue. As of 10:15 am his word is playable, but it's not really "his" (it was chosen by me).
8/11/11: Mike's queue ran out earlier today, but it's been restored.
4/16/11: It should no longer be possible to have exact repeats between the two word lists (Joon's and Mike's), except in the pathological case where both lists have the same word on the same day. Otherwise, once one list uses a word, it will be removed from the other person's list.
2/26/11: Mike has written an iPhone app called Lexicographer based on Guess My Word.
12/10/10: Facebook page, take two. There's now a Facebook page for Guess My Word. That'll be where you can discuss the words. Try to keep the Wall spoiler-free, because posts on the Wall might show up in my feed before I've had a chance to guess today's word. Instead, use the Discussions tab.
12/9/10: I'm trying out this Facebook "Like" button. If I understand this correctly, it'll mean that there'll be a little Facebook page for this guessing game. The practical implication is that if you (are on Facebook and) Like the game, you'll be able to use the "wall" of the Facebook page as a discussion board for the words. Feel free to post spoilers there. Might take a day or two for the page to autovivify. We'll see, I guess.
12/8/10: "New feature" is a euphemism here, but there have been some little bugs recently that caused the loss of some leaderboard data. I think I've got them all ironed out now, but do let me know if you see something amiss.
11/11/10: Updated the FAQ, and added a dictionary link for people who give up.
9/3/10: Leaderboard now includes the guess history for each solver (as a mouseover).
9/3/10: The leaderboard now tracks both solving time and number of guesses. The timer starts when you make your first guess.
9/3/10: Old words are playable (although you won't be added to old leaderboards).
8/31/10: Old leaderboards are viewable.