Wordle was pretty simple this weekend, but the working week (for those of you who do a Monday-Friday) has started off in more difficult fashion. Today’s Wordle has an average score of 4.3, according to WordleBot, and it took me five guesses to solve it. Ouch!
Fancy some Wordle hints before you begin? Then read on for a selection of clues to guide you in the right direction. And if you don’t have time to play at all, you can see the answer, too. Want more word-based fun? My Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about today’s Wordle answers are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.
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 460 mark and he’ll be inconsolable if he loses it. Yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Wordle hints (game #688) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has two vowels*.
* 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 hints (game #688) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is A.
A is a reasonably common starting letter in Wordle: 140 games begin with this letter. It ranks 6th among starting letters, behind S, C, B, T and P.
Wordle hints (game #688) – clue #3 – repeated letters
Does today’s Wordle have any repeated letters?
• There are no repeated letters 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 hints (game #688) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is W.
W is an uncommon ending letter in Wordle. A mere 17 games finish with one, out of 2,309 original answers.
Wordle hints (game #688) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for Wordle hints today? Don’t worry, I’ll give you one more for game #688.
- Today’s Wordle answer is lit up.
If you just want to know today’s Wordle answer now, simply scroll down – 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 today’s answer then DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER BECAUSE IT IS PRINTED BELOW. So don’t say you weren’t warned!
Today’s Wordle answer (game #688)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #688) is… AGLOW.
Bah! I don’t like scoring 5s in Wordle, and I particularly don’t like it when the average is a fair bit lower than that. Admittedly, today’s game rates at 4.3, according to WordleBot, which makes it the most difficult since Thursday’s GUPPY (4.6), but I feel I should have scored a 4/6 even so.
Then again, 4.3 is a high average score, and unless you got lucky with your choice of the best Wordle starting words, you might well have had lots of options to narrow down for your second guess. I certainly did: STARE, my pick, left me with 188 possible solutions. SLATE (74) was a bit better, but CRANE (also 188), TRACE and CRATE (both 185) were also unhelpful. The most popular choice, ADIEU, was actually one of the more successful starters today – it left 54 options. That’s still too many for comfort, though.
None of that should be a surprise when you look at the letters in AGLOW. G doesn’t feature in many common start words, and is far more likely to be found at the start of a Wordle than it is in second position: it’s the eighth most common starting letter, but the 21st most common in position #2!
W, meanwhile, is uncommon almost everywhere. It’s particularly unlikely to be found at the end of a Wordle answer, where it appears just 17 times among the 2,309 original answers. But just to prove that probability only takes you so far, this is the second time it’s cropped up there in four days, following BELOW on Friday!
Despite all that, I’m still annoyed that it took me five guesses to find it. Luck (or rather, a lack of it) played a part here: WordleBot awarded me 95/99 for skill but a mere 16/99 for luck.
I followed up STARE with MADLY, a second word I’ve had good results with in similar situations, and was rewarded with a yellow L. The A stayed stubbornly yellow, though, and I still had 27 possible solutions left open to me.
Next up, FOCAL: I had a few other answers that ended AL (VOCAL, LOCAL, FINAL, OFFAL), so decided it was worth a shot. But though I got a yellow O from it, the A and L both refused to turn green. Finally, on the fourth guess, I had a breakthrough – not only was the A confirmed at the start of the word, but the L was effectively set in place too, because it could now only go in the middle. With a yellow G also thrown into the mix, AGLOW was the only answer left to play.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #687)
In a different time zone where it’s still Sunday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #687, too.
- Wordle yesterday had two vowels.
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was G.
- There are no repeated letters in yesterday’s Wordle.
- The last letter in yesterday’s Wordle was L.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is an evil being.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #687)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #687) was… GHOUL.
Wordle’s in one of its (usually brief) easier periods right now. It’s probably the calm before the storm, but in the meantime we’ll enjoy the respite from horrible -ER words, or answers that feature Zs and Xs.
GHOUL has none of those problems. There are no repeated letters either, and it’s a relatively common word that not too many people will have big problems finding. The GH at the start is uncommon – it’s one of only two such words in Wordle’s 2,309 original answers, with the other presumably being GHOST – but G as a starting letter on its own is very common: it ranks 8th, ahead of the likes of D, M and even R.
All of that adds up to answer that WordleBot says people are solving in a mere 3.6 guesses, making it the easiest Wordle answer since RANGE a week ago.
Proof of how simple it is comes from the fact that I scored a 3/6 despite getting a zero on the first guess. In fact, that low average score of 3.6 is all the more surprising when you realize that none of the best Wordle starting words were very much use today. SLATE was the pick of the popular choices, leaving 106 answers, but the likes of ADIEU (246), CRANE (357) and CRATE (344) were all almost no help.
Then again, there really aren’t many other words that have a similar structure to GHOUL, so if your second word was a good one, you’ll have been fine. For instance, my starter, STARE, left me with an almighty 318 possible solutions to sift through, but somehow I cut that down to just one with my second guess, COULD!
I figured there’d be more than one possibility – WordleBot only tells you the reality after the game – but try as I might I couldn’t find a way to arrange O, U and L into a five-letter word that fit. Eventually I spotted GHOUL and by that time was so convinced that it had to be the answer that I played it almost immediately.
As it turned out, I was right, and scored a 3/6 in the process. And to cap off a good day, WordleBot only managed 4/6. Ha!
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 #687, Sunday 7 May: GHOUL
- Wordle #686, Saturday 6 May: ANGER
- Wordle #685, Friday 5 May: BELOW
- Wordle #684, Thursday 4 May: GUPPY
- Wordle #683, Wednesday 3 May: HORDE
- Wordle #682, Tuesday 2 May: SULKY
- Wordle #681, Monday 1 May: RANGE
- Wordle #680, Sunday 30 April: PLAZA
- Wordle #679, Saturday 29 April: CEDAR
- Wordle #678, Friday 28 April: CIRCA
- Wordle #677, Thursday 27 April: LOGIC
- Wordle #676, Wednesday 26 April: METRO
- Wordle #675, Tuesday 25 April: JOKER
- Wordle #674, Monday 24 April: DITTO
- Wordle #673, Sunday 23 April: UNZIP
- Wordle #672, Saturday 22 April: BROKE
- Wordle #671, Friday 21 April: KAYAK
- Wordle #670, Thursday 20 April: PLATE
- Wordle #669, Wednesday 19 April: THUMP
- Wordle #668, Tuesday 18 April: HOUND
- Wordle #667, Monday 17 April: WHIFF
- Wordle #666, Sunday 16 April: DWELT
- Wordle #665, Saturday 15 April: AGONY
- Wordle #664, Friday 14 April: THIEF
- Wordle #663, Thursday 13 April: CARAT
- Wordle #662, Wednesday 12 April: BORAX
- Wordle #661, Tuesday 11 April: QUALM
- Wordle #660, Monday 10 April: UNDER
- Wordle #659, Sunday 9 April: SNAFU
- Wordle #658, Saturday 8 April: LEDGE
- Wordle #657, Friday 7 April: LOCUS
- Wordle #656, Thursday 6 April: LEAFY
- Wordle #655, Wednesday 5 April: SMASH
- Wordle #654, Tuesday 4 April: RATIO
- Wordle #653, Monday 3 April: FLORA
- Wordle #652, Sunday 2 April: STOCK
- Wordle #651, Saturday 1 April: MARCH
- Wordle #650, Friday 31 March: EVERY
- Wordle #649, Thursday 30 March: BREAD
- Wordle #648, Wednesday 29 March: BESET
- Wordle #647, Tuesday 28 March: HURRY
- Wordle #646, Monday 27 March: GUANO
- Wordle #645, Sunday 26 March: UNTIE
- Wordle #644, Saturday 25 March: VOTER
- Wordle #643, Friday 24 March: GROUT
- Wordle #642, Thursday 23 March: STAID
- Wordle #641, Wednesday 22 March: DUVET
- Wordle #640, Tuesday 21 March: TOUGH
- Wordle #639, Monday 20 March: GLOVE
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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