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 #988) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has 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).
Wordle hints (game #988) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is S.
S is the most common starting letter in the game, featuring in 365 of Wordle‘s 2,309 answers. In fact, it’s almost twice as likely to begin an answer as the next most common starting letter, C.
Wordle hints (game #988) – clue #3 – repeated letters
Does today’s Wordle have any repeated letters?
• There are 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 #988) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is E.
E is the most common letter to end a Wordle answer by far. That’s one of the reasons why many of the best start words, including SLATE, CRANE, CRATE and STARE, all end with one.
Wordle hints (game #988) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #988.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a mode or condition of being.
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 #988)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #988) is… STATE.
Some Wordles are generally easy or generally difficult, with most players scoring within a guess or so of each other. Of course there will always be some Wordlers at either extreme, depending on start word, luck and skill, but the majority will bunch together in the middle.
I suspect that today’s is a very different type of game, though.
WordleBot says that STATE has an average score of 4.3, which makes it the hardest game since PIPER more than a week ago. And given the way averages work, that means that lots of people will have scored 5/6s or even 6/6s today.
However, a couple of the best Wordle start words cut down the options to such an extent today that anyone who played them will have almost certainly scored a three – and quite possibly a two. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the spread here was with peaks around 3/6 and 5/6, rather than most people getting 4s.
It’s not hard to see why start word was so important here. All five letters are common in many of the best openers, but in some select cases players will have ended that first guess with three or four green letters, and that always makes a huge difference. For instance, SLATE – which is one of the most popular start words as well as one of the best – will have given players S-ATE and only three possible solutions to pick from. STARE (which is even more popular), left STA-E, and five possibles.
That’s why some people may have found it easy, then. But on the flip side, narrowing down those options may still have been tricky if you risked an outright guess on the second go, as opposed to trying to narrow it down further.
The latter strategy is the one I used, but unfortunately my first guess was so poor that a 3/6 was always going to be beyond me. My random word generator served up ALLAY, which only includes three letters, annoyingly, and only one of which changed color. That left me 492 words to choose from.
Things went much better after that: CRATE gave me three green letters and cut the options to four. As I said above, I didn’t attempt an outright guess at this stage, because those four words – SPATE, SKATE, STATE and OVATE – were equally likely and guessing any of them might well have still left me with a 50/50 on the fourth attempt. Instead, I played STONK, which was guaranteed to give me the answer in four, and duly found the answer next time out. WordleBot, meanwhile, took the other approach, guessing SPATE then SKATE before solving STATE on its fifth guess. Bad strategy, ‘Bot.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #987)
In a different time zone where it’s still Saturday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #987, 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 U.
U is not a particularly common starting letter in Wordle, with only 33 answers beginning with it. It ranks 20th in this regard, and is the least common vowel to start 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 N.
N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it’s the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #987.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer relates to a city.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #987)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #987) was… URBAN.
Six out of the past seven Wordles have nestled just below the overall average for the game, coming in at 3.8 or 3.9. Not too easy, not too hard, with luck and your start word playing the key role in determining whether you scored a 3/6, 4/6 or 5/6.
URBAN continues that trend; it’s another 3.8, according to WordleBot, and shares a lot of similarities with Monday’s OFTEN. Once again it starts with a vowel, follows it with two consonants, then ends with another vowel and a third consonant. The five letters here are comparable too, with four that are common and one outlier. In this case that’s B – very common at the start of an answer, but only 18th overall.
WordleBot’s favorite start word was particularly helpful today: CRANE left only five solutions. TRAIN had the same result, while CRATE left 15 and TRADE 14; there were good scores to be had today.
I thought I’d got lucky with my start word, DAIRY, which WordleBot described as “strong”, but it didn’t cut down the options as well as the big winners above. Though it gave me a yellow A and R, it still left 131 words and plenty for me to do.
I’ve had lots of success lately playing ROAST second, so took the same approach here. Unfortunately, today it was unlucky – I didn’t uncover any more letters and still had 24 words to choose from.
A 3/6 was now beyond me, but a 4/6 wasn’t. I set about listing all of the words that still fit, and came up with most of them. Many had an EA pattern in the middle: CLEAR, BREAK, FREAK, WREAK, CREAM and CREAK, for instance. I also had a few outliers including ARGUE, ANGER, AMBER, ARENA and MURAL. But not, at this stage, URBAN.
Still, that didn’t matter yet. CLEAR seemed like an obvious third guess, and it did the job to an extent, finally turning the A green. The R stayed yellow, but it could now only go in two places. And with C, L and E now ruled out, my options had narrowed to just two.
Those words were URBAN and QURAN, WordleBot said, but I didn’t think of the latter. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had, because URBAN seemed like a much more likely answer, so I played that next and scored an acceptable 4/6.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than two years 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 #987, Saturday 2 March: URBAN
- Wordle #986, Friday 1 March: FORTY
- Wordle #985, Thursday 29 February: IMAGE
- Wordle #984, Wednesday 28 February: DEVIL
- Wordle #983, Tuesday 27 February: SENSE
- Wordle #982, Monday 26 February: OFTEN
- Wordle #981, Sunday 25 February: SMITH
- Wordle #980, Saturday 24 February: PIPER
- Wordle #979, Friday 23 February: APART
- Wordle #978, Thursday 22 February: HEAVY
- Wordle #977, Wednesday 21 February: BUILD
- Wordle #976, Tuesday 20 February: MATCH
- Wordle #975, Monday 19 February: PRICE
- Wordle #974, Sunday 18 February: RIDGE
- Wordle #973, Saturday 17 February: PSALM
- Wordle #972, Friday 16 February: STASH
- Wordle #971, Thursday 15 February: ASCOT
- Wordle #970, Wednesday 14 February: TALON
- Wordle #969, Tuesday 13 February: SCRAM
- Wordle #968, Monday 12 February: PASTA
- Wordle #967, Sunday 11 February: NEVER
- Wordle #966, Saturday 10 February: FRIED
- Wordle #965, Friday 9 February: STIFF
- Wordle #964, Thursday 8 February: PLACE
- Wordle #963, Wednesday 7 February: AFTER
- Wordle #962, Tuesday 6 February: WHICH
- Wordle #961, Monday 5 February: REPEL
- Wordle #960, Sunday 4 February: VERGE
- Wordle #959, Saturday 3 February: MICRO
- Wordle #958, Friday 2 February: CLEFT
- Wordle #957, Thursday 1 February: ALIVE
- Wordle #956, Wednesday 31 January: BULKY
- Wordle #955, Tuesday 30 January: EXPEL
- Wordle #954, Monday 29 January: LEGGY
- Wordle #953, Sunday 28 January: EMBER
- Wordle #952, Saturday 27 January: SNAKE
- Wordle #951, Friday 26 January: ALOOF
- Wordle #950, Thursday 25 January: BLOCK
- 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
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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