It’s time for your guide to today’s Wordle answer, featuring my commentary on the latest puzzle, plus a selection of hints designed to help you keep your streak going.
Don’t think you need any clues for Wordle today? No problem, just skip to my daily column. But remember: failure in this game is only ever six guesses away.
Want more word-based fun? My Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, which remains the best of all the main Wordle alternatives.
SPOILER WARNING: Today’s Wordle answer and hints 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 two years. 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 Wordle streak has reached the 500 mark (and is now in the 700s) and he’ll be inconsolable if he loses it. Yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Wordle hints (game #950) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has a vowel in one place*.
* 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 #950) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and C.
Wordle hints (game #950) – 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 #950) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is K.
K is much more common at the end of a Wordle answer than at the start, and in fact ranks ninth overall in this regard.
Wordle hints (game #950) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #950.
- Today’s Wordle answer is to stand in the way of something or stop it.
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 #950)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #950) is… BLOCK.
Wordle seems to have settled into a pattern lately, at least when it comes to difficulty level. It’s been a full two weeks since we had a puzzle with an average score of above 3.9, and for the past five days we’ve been stuck between 3.6 and 3.8.
Things are slowly getting harder this week, possibly, with BLOCK apparently being solved in 3.8 guesses on average, following 3.7 yesterday and 3.6 on Tuesday. Who knows, maybe we could be in store for a 4.0 by Saturday…
Though it’s not at that level yet, BLOCK is at least slightly harder than some Wordles. There are no repeated letters, but K is a relatively uncommon one, albeit one that’s more common at the end of the word than it is in general. It also suffers from its similarity to other words: FLOCK and CLOCK primarily, but also BLOWN and BLOOM and BRICK and various others that differ by two letters.
The other potential problem is that very few of the best Wordle starting words helped to any real extent. TRACE, SLATE, CRATE, CRANE, CARET and CARTE were all in the 40-70 range, while SAINT left a whopping 540 answers. Only one of the top 20, PLACE, reduced the numbers to single figures (it left seven).
Once again I started with a random word, and once again this worked very nicely. BLIND was the selection made for me by my computer, and it left only 20 possibles. The task was made easier still by the fact that the first two letters, B and L, both turned green; it’s always easier to think of words that fit when you have the letters at the start rather than at the end, as I had with the IC in COMIC yesterday.
Coming up with my shortlist was therefore a simple matter of thinking about which vowels could follow BL, and which two-letter combinations could follow that vowel. I jotted down BLAME, BLAZE, BLACK, BLAST and BLARE with an A in the middle, BLOCK, BLOOM, BLOAT, BLOKE and BLOOP with an O, BLUFF, BLUSH, BLURB and BLURT with a U and BLESS, BLEAT, BLEEP and BLEAK with an E. The keen-eyed among you may have spotted there are 18 there, not 20, but I missed BLASE and BLUER.
I wanted to establish which of those vowels was included, because that seemed very important. Several words also had either an R or a T, so ORATE fit the bill. In truth, lots of consonants could have worked – WordleBot preferred SMEAR, REAMS or STARE, but still awarded me 87 for skill.
The result was not perfect, however, with only the O changing color. Yes, that cut the options to three, but WordleBot said I was unlucky and I would agree.
Fortunately, I got my luck on the next guess. With BLOCK, BLOOM and BLOOP to pick from, I should probably have chosen one of the latter two, because doing so would have guaranteed a 4/6. But I decided that BLOOP was an unlikely answer, which meant that I had a 50/50 and no real reason to favor either of the other two. BLOOM had a repeated letter, which made it less likely in one sense (although not technically less likely at this stage of the game), so I went with BLOCK – and guessed correctly for a 3/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #949)
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #949, too.
- Wordle yesterday had vowels in two places.
* 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).
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was 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.
- There were no repeated letters in yesterday’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.
- The last letter in yesterday’s Wordle was C.
C is a fairly uncommon letter to end a Wordle answer – it’s only the 16th most likely to be found there.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #949.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is an old or outdated object (or possibly person).
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #949)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #949) was… RELIC.
I like RELIC as an answer. Though all the letters are very common, most are not in the positions where you’d expect them, and that means you may have had to work a little harder to place them. It’s not a particularly tough puzzle in general, with WordleBot stating that it has an average score of 3.7, but it has a little more to it than some of the ultra-easy ones we’ve seen recently.
I certainly didn’t find it to be easy, and eventually had to settle for a 4/6. Then again, a lot of that was due to bad luck.
Not that it seemed that way early on. The thing about using a random start word is that you have good days and bad days. As you’d expect, my previous choice, STARE, was much more consistent; it would generally work well on days when most people had an easier time of it, but would fail on the really tough games. Random words don’t work like that, of course, and that’s made the game a lot less predictable – and generally more fun.
RELIC is a good example. My start word was COMIC, which as you can see has the same IC ending as the answer. That took me a long way towards the solution, leaving me with only 10 words to choose from. And, as a measure of how fortunate my opener was, only three of the top 20 best Wordle starting words outperformed me: LANCE left nine, TRICE left four and REACT left three. WordleBot’s favorites, TRACE and SLATE, were some way behind at 22 and 98 respectively.
The fact that I therefore needed another three guesses to solve it was unfortunate, but I’m not really blaming myself. Of the 10 words I supposedly had to pick from, I identified five – PANIC, PUBIC, TUNIC, ATTIC and BASIC – but also missed five, LYRIC, RELIC, ANTIC, ETHIC and ASPIC. Obviously I could have tried harder to find more of them, and maybe would have solved it in three guesses if I’d have done so. But of course I didn’t know at that time that there were 10; there could have only been five, or maybe there were 50.
The five I did have were enough for me to think that I should play an A and an N. The P also looked like a sensible choice. And yes, with hindsight maybe I should have thrown in a couple of extra letters, leaving out the already-green I and C, but I figured there was a chance for a 2/6 here, so took that risk.
WordleBot didn’t think PANIC was a stupid guess and still awarded me 87/99 for skill. However, it gave me only 17 for luck, which is understandable given that I’d uncovered no more letters.
Still, I only had three words left now, and this time did find them all: LYRIC, RELIC and ETHIC. There was no advantage to playing any one over the other, because either way I’d solve it in four at worst; R, E and L each only appeared in two of them, so whatever word I chose would rule out one more answer, leaving just a single option. I went with LYRIC purely because I love music, but guessed incorrectly. Still, the fact that the L and R turned yellow meant that it had to now be RELIC, so I played that next for my 4/6.
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 #949, Wednesday 24 January: RELIC
- Wordle #948, Tuesday 23 January: STILL
- Wordle #947, Monday 22 January: TWEAK
- Wordle #946, Sunday 21 January: NORTH
- Wordle #945, Saturday 20 January: LARGE
- Wordle #944, Friday 19 January: THING
- Wordle #943, Thursday 18 January: STOLE
- Wordle #942, Wednesday 17 January: COURT
- Wordle #941, Tuesday 16 January: BLOND
- Wordle #940, Monday 15 January: LUNCH
- Wordle #939, Sunday 14 January: DOING
- Wordle #938, Saturday 13 January: HEARD
- Wordle #937, Friday 12 January: ROUTE
- Wordle #936, Thursday 11 January: BRIEF
- Wordle #935, Wednesday 10 January: THREW
- Wordle #934, Tuesday 9 January: LINER
- Wordle #933, Monday 8 January: FINAL
- Wordle #932, Sunday 7 January: STONY
- Wordle #931, Saturday 6 January: CABLE
- Wordle #930, Friday 5 January: LUNGE
- Wordle #929, Thursday 4 January: SCANT
- Wordle #928, Wednesday 3 January: TWIRL
- Wordle #927, Tuesday 2 January: AGING
- Wordle #926, Monday 1 January: MURAL
- Wordle #925, Sunday 31 December: SALTY
- Wordle #924, Saturday 30 December: THREE
- Wordle #923, Friday 29 December: CHILD
- Wordle #922, Thursday 28 December: LEARN
- Wordle #921, Wednesday 27 December: DAISY
- Wordle #920, Tuesday 26 December: PHONE
- Wordle #919, Monday 25 December: EVOKE
- Wordle #918, Sunday 24 December: GRACE
- Wordle #917, Saturday 23 December: SLOPE
- Wordle #916, Friday 22 December: TOUCH
- Wordle #915, Thursday 21 December: BUILT
- Wordle #914, Wednesday 20 December: SMALL
- Wordle #913, Tuesday 19 December: TABLE
- Wordle #912, Monday 18 December: FUNNY
- Wordle #911, Sunday 17 December: BACON
- Wordle #910, Saturday 16 December: GLOBE
- Wordle #909, Friday 15 December: TOPIC
- Wordle #908, Thursday 14 December: WOULD
- Wordle #907, Wednesday 13 December: SPENT
- Wordle #906, Tuesday 12 December: THESE
- Wordle #905, Monday 11 December: HOUSE
- Wordle #904, Sunday 10 December: CHAIN
- Wordle #903, Saturday 9 December: SHIFT
- Wordle #902, Friday 8 December: SHARP
- Wordle #901, Thursday 7 December: SLEEP
- Wordle #900, Wednesday 6 December: WOMAN
- Wordle #899, Tuesday 5 December: YOUNG
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 2024.
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 or the New York Times’ Crossword app (iOS / Android), 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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