If you’re looking for Wordle clues and hints then you’re in the right place. And you might well need them, because today’s puzzle is tricky one that WordleBot says people are only solving in 4.3 guesses.
I’m a Wordle addict who’s been playing since December 2021, so I can definitely help you solve Wordle today and improve your game for tomorrow. Read on for my Wordle clues and hints to game #612 and bookmark this page so you can easily return tomorrow.
Oh, and if you also play Quordle then my Quordle today page contains clues and answers for that too.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about Wordle today and yesterday are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Marc is TechRadar’s UK Editor in Chief and has been playing Wordle for more than a year. He’s authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar and its sister site Tom’s Guide, including a detailed analysis of the most common letters in every position. His streak recently reached the 400 mark and he’ll be inconsolable if he loses it. Yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Wordle clues (game #612) – hint #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has one vowel*.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
Wordle clues (game #612) – hint #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is R.
R is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter. Despite ranking third overall in Wordle, it’s merely the 11th most likely to begin an answer.
Wordle clues (game #612) – hint #3 – repeated letters
Does today’s Wordle have any repeated letters?
• There is one repeated letter in today’s Wordle.
Repeated letters are quite common in the game, with 748 of the 2,309 Wordle answers containing one. However, it’s still more likely that a Wordle doesn’t have one.
Wordle clues (game #612) – hint #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Wordle clues (game #612) – hint #5 – last chance
Still looking for Wordle clues today? Don’t worry, I’ll give you one more for game #612.
- Today’s Wordle is a healthy red color.
If you just want to know the answer at this stage you can scroll down to see it, but I’d always recommend trying to solve it on your own first. We’ve got lots of Wordle tips and tricks to help you, including a guide to the best Wordle start words.
If you don’t want to know the solution then DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER BECAUSE THE ANSWER IS DIRECTLY BELOW. So don’t say you weren’t warned!
Wordle today (game #612) – the answer
The answer to today’s Wordle, game #612, is… RUDDY.
We had one of the easiest Wordles in ages yesterday, with SWEAT being solved in an average of 3.5 guesses, but today’s puzzle offers a sharp contrast. WordleBot says it’s taking people 4.3 guesses to solve it, and I suspect some people are failing entirely.
In fact, I know they are – because WordleBot is reporting that only 94% of people solved it on the final guess. I don’t know how many failed overall, but based on WordleBot’s sample size it looks like it’s in the hundreds, if not thousands.
There are obvious reasons why that would be. For one, it has a repeated D – something that only occurs in 22 Wordle games in total, or around 1% of the 2,309 answers. What’s more, those two Ds are together – which only happens in 13 solutions. We’ve never had one before, either, so you won’t have had past experience to draw on.
An R at the start is less common than you might think; although it’s the third most common letter in the Wordle alphabet, it ranks just 11th as a starting letter. And U is the least common of the five standard vowels. Still, at least the Y at the end is very common.
Even if you found most of the letters, RUDDY is not an obvious word to guess. The Word and Phrase Info site (opens in new tab) ranks it at 17,432nd among English words, compared to just 3,724 for SWEAT.
And just to ram home how tricky it might be, only two of WordleBot’s best Wordle starting words resulted in fewer than 100 remaining solutions after the first guess. These were TRACE and CRATE, and both left a still-quite-large pool of 77 possible answers. SLATE, WordleBot’s favorite, had 308 and SLANT had a mammoth 530!
My own favorite, STARE, whittled things down to 123 possibles – so my second guess needed to do a lot of hard work. Well, it managed that – and then some.
ROUND took my options down from 123 to just one. Yes, one. It was an obvious word to pick: it uses a further two vowels, and adds two very common consonants in N and D into the mix. I wouldn’t usually play R at the start – it’s far more common in position #2 or at the end – but I decided it was a better bet than the likes of PROUD, GROIN, BROIL or CRIMP, all of which I considered, based on it including both the D and N.
With the U and D turning yellow, and the R going green, I knew I was in a good place. I suspected there’d be a few possible answers, but the harder I looked the more I starting believing that there really was just one. That was RUDDY, and it proved to be the answer. Just goes to show that your second guess really is almost as important as your first.
Oh, and as a further bonus WordleBot itself needed five guesses to complete this one. Excellent!
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Wordle yesterday (game #611) – clues
In a different time zone where it’s still Monday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #611 too.
- Wordle yesterday had two vowels.
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was S.
- There were no repeated letters in yesterday’s Wordle.
- The last letter in yesterday’s Wordle was T.
- Yesterday’s Wordle means to perspire.
Wordle yesterday (game #611) – the answer
The answer to yesterday’s Wordle, game #611, was… SWEAT.
If the previous two Wordles were at the harder end of the scale, then today’s is undoubtedly one of the most straightforward we’ve had in ages. WordleBot says people are solving it in an average of 3.5 guesses and depending on your choice of the best Wordle starting words, you might have had just a couple of options remaining for your second guess.
That’s what happened with me: I played STARE and it left me with only SWEAT and SATED as potential solutions. If you started with SLANT or LEAST then you also had just two possibles. SLATE, meanwhile, left five.
Wordle doesn’t use many past participles, so once I’d established that only SWEAT and SATED fit, I was immediately drawn towards playing the former. I also had the advantage of knowing that even if I was wrong I’d still score a 3/6. So I played SWEAT and picked up my first 2/6 since SLATE in December. A nice way to start the Wordle week!
Wordle answers: The past 50
I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than a year now and have tracked all of the previous answers so I can help you improve your game. Here are the last 50 solutions starting with yesterday’s answer, or check out my past Wordle answers page for the full list.
- Wordle #611, Monday 20 February: SWEAT
- Wordle #610, Sunday 19 February: KIOSK
- Wordle #609, Saturday 18 February: AVAIL
- Wordle #608, Friday 17 February: CACHE
- Wordle #607, Thursday 16 February: MAGIC
- Wordle #606, Wednesday 15 February: SALSA
- Wordle #605, Tuesday 14 February: SOUND
- Wordle #604, Monday 13 February: USAGE
- Wordle #603, Sunday 12 February: GIANT
- Wordle #602, Saturday 11 February: DEBUG
- Wordle #601, Friday 10 February: HEADY
- Wordle #600, Thursday 9 February: STAGE
- Wordle #599, Wednesday 8 February: FLAIL
- Wordle #598, Tuesday 7 February: APPLE
- Wordle #597, Monday 6 February: NINTH
- Wordle #596, Sunday 5 February: DANCE
- Wordle #595, Saturday 4 February: UNLIT
- Wordle #594, Friday 3 February: TASTY
- Wordle #593, Thursday 2 February: SHIRK
- Wordle #592, Wednesday 1 February: SCOLD
- Wordle #591, Tuesday 31 January: CROSS
- Wordle #590, Monday 30 January: CRAVE
- Wordle #589, Sunday 29 January: FISHY
- Wordle #588, Saturday 28 January: FLIRT
- Wordle #587, Friday 27 January: WORRY
- Wordle #586, Thursday 26 January: BEEFY
- Wordle #585, Wednesday 25 January: MAIZE
- Wordle #584, Tuesday 24 January: COUNT
- Wordle #583, Monday 23 January: ELUDE
- Wordle #582, Sunday 22 January: MATEY
- Wordle #581, Saturday 21 January: BLURB
- Wordle #580, Friday 20 January: ALTER
- Wordle #579, Thursday 19 January: MUCKY
- Wordle #578, Wednesday 18 January: CHARD
- Wordle #577, Tuesday 17 January: ADOPT
- Wordle #576, Monday 16 January: FROCK
- Wordle #575, Sunday 15 January: SPIRE
- Wordle #574, Saturday 14 January: KOALA
- Wordle #573, Friday 13 January: HUMAN
- Wordle #572, Thursday 12 January: LEAPT
- Wordle #571, Wednesday 11 January: SEDAN
- Wordle #570, Tuesday 10 January: GRIMY
- Wordle #569, Monday 9 January: PIXIE
- Wordle #568, Sunday 8 January: OPERA
- Wordle #567, Saturday 7 January: LEMON
- Wordle #566, Friday 6 January: BELIE
- Wordle #565, Thursday 5 January: SLEEK
- Wordle #564, Wednesday 4 January: LAYER
- Wordle #563, Tuesday 3 January: ANTIC
- Wordle #562, Monday 2 January: SKIRT
What is Wordle?
If you’re on this page then you almost certainly know what Wordle is already, and indeed have probably been playing it for a while. And even if you’ve not been playing it, you must surely have heard of it by now, because it’s the viral word game phenomenon that took the world by storm last year and is still going strong in 2023.
We’ve got a full guide to the game in our What is Wordle page, but if you just want a refresher then here are the basics.
What is Wordle?
Wordle challenges you to guess a new five-letter word each day. You get six guesses, with each one revealing a little more information. If one of the letters in your guess is in the answer and in the right place, it turns green. If it’s in the answer but in the wrong place, it turns yellow. And if it’s not in the answer at all it turns gray. Simple, eh?
It’s played online via the Wordle website (opens in new tab) or the New York Times’ Crossword app (iOS (opens in new tab) / Android (opens in new tab)), and is entirely free.
Crucially, the answer is the same for everyone each day, meaning that you’re competing against the rest of the world, rather than just against yourself or the game. The puzzle then resets each day at midnight in your local time, giving you a new challenge, and the chance to extend your streak.
What are the Wordle rules?
The rules of Wordle are pretty straightforward, but with a couple of curveballs thrown in for good measure.
1. Letters that are in the answer and in the right place turn green.
2. Letters that are in the answer but in the wrong place turn yellow.
3. Letters that are not in the answer turn gray.
4. Answers are never plural.
5. Letters can appear more than once. So if your guess includes two of one letter, they may both turn yellow, both turn green, or one could be yellow and the other green.
6. Each guess must be a valid word in Wordle’s dictionary. You can’t guess ABCDE, for instance.
7. You do not have to include correct letters in subsequent guesses unless you play on Hard mode.
8. You have six guesses to solve the Wordle.
9. You must complete the daily Wordle before midnight in your timezone.
10. All answers are drawn from Wordle’s list of 2,309 solutions. However…
11. Wordle will accept a wider pool of words as guesses – some 10,000 of them. For instance, you can guess a plural such as WORDS. It definitely won’t be right (see point 4 above), but Wordle will accept it as a guess.
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