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, and you can also take a look at my NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for my verdict on two of the New York Times’ other brainteasers.
SPOILER WARNING: Today’s Wordle answer and hints are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.
Wordle hints (game #1123) – 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 #1123) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is D.
D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.
Wordle hints (game #1123) – 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 #1123) – clue #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 hints (game #1123) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1123.
- Today’s Wordle answer is used to lure something into a trap.
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 #1123)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CRATE, CARTE (16 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: BOXER (69)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1123) is… DECOY.
This is a relatively simply Wordle that has the classic consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant format. Or does it? Well, Y sometimes acts as a vowel and sometimes as a consonant. Here, it’s more like a vowel sound, but writing this column (and particularly giving people hints) would be far more complicated if I used it in both ways, so I’ll always refer to it as a consonant, incorrect though that might technically be.
Anyway, none of that is all that relevant to the overall discussion of this game, because as my analysis of every Wordle answer shows Y is the second most common ending letter, so it’s not noteworthy here. In fact, none of the five letters are; they’re all relatively common overall (or very common in some cases) and relatively/very common in their particular slots within DECOY.
The upshot is that this is a humdrum Wordle answer with none of the drama of a word like JIFFY or even SWOON. It has an average score of 3.8, resulted in some good start words, and is unlikely to lead to many failures.
I had to settle for a four, mostly because my first guess, BOXER, was a fairly unlucky choice and left 69 possible solutions. In contrast, CRANE, WordleBot’s favorite, left only 21. I followed that with STOLE, which was again unlucky – WordleBot awarded me 93/99 for skill, but 8/99 for luck.
I still had a dozen possibles left for my third guess, according to WordleBot, and found just over half of them myself: DEMON, VENOM, DECOY, ENJOY, ENVOY, GECKO and OCEAN.
Of those, DEMON was a good choice because it would almost guarantee me a 4/6 at worst; I might have had a 50/50 between ENJOY/ENVOY, but decided that was a risk worth taking.
As it happened, it did leave me a 50/50 – but not that one. Unknown to me, DEFOG was also an option, but I’d missed that in my deliberations and so played DECOY in blissful ignorance. It turned out to be right, so I scored another four.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1122)
In a different time zone where it’s still Monday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1122, 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 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.
- There were 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 #1122.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is to faint.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1122)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SAINT (19 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: DRUNK (219)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1122) was… SWOON.
I’ve got a pretty poor record with –OO games. My one failure, which came while I was using the Wordle Archive to catch up on the early games I’d missed, was on WOOER (which I maintain is a stupid word). I’ve also scored fives on LOOPY, BOOZY, BOOZE, IGLOO, DROOP and BROOK, although there have been plenty of fours in there too.
SWOON is by no means the hardest with that double-O format, coming in at an average score of 4.1 according to WordleBot. It’s probably helped by the fact that it starts with an S – which as my analysis of every Wordle answer shows is by far the most common starting letter.
Start words that began with an S were therefore among the best today, although very few were very successful even so. SAINT was the pick of them, leaving 19 options, but among those that are regularly played, SLATE (71) and STARE (80) were not too bad.
DRUNK, which my random word generator served up, was particularly unhelpful, giving me only a yellow N and leaving 219 possible solutions. But I got lucky with my second guess, which cut that to eight. I went with SNAIL, reasoning that, yes, S is a very likely letter at the start, and including three other common letters in A, I and L.
That gave me the green S, but kept the N yellow, which meant it was likely to go at the end of the word. On my shortlist were SHEEN, SHOWN, SEVEN, SPOON and SWOON, plus SENSE – but I missed SYNTH and SYNCH.
SHOWN was an obvious choice next, because as well as potentially being the answer it would guarantee me a 4/6 unless I’d missed a word or two. Obviously I had missed some, but that didn’t hurt me because when the W turned yellow and the O and N green, the answer had to be SWOON.
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 #1122, Monday 15 July: SWOON
- Wordle #1121, Sunday 14 July: VIDEO
- Wordle #1120, Saturday 13 July: ENACT
- Wordle #1119, Friday 12 July: JIFFY
- Wordle #1118, Thursday 11 July: CAMEO
- Wordle #1117, Wednesday 10 July: GAUNT
- Wordle #1116, Tuesday 9 July: BLARE
- Wordle #1115, Monday 8 July: SHAPE
- Wordle #1114, Sunday 7 July: CANON
- Wordle #1113, Saturday 6 July: SCOFF
- Wordle #1112, Friday 5 July: CRUSH
- Wordle #1111, Thursday 4 July: DEBUT
- Wordle #1110, Wednesday 3 July: THIGH
- Wordle #1109, Tuesday 2 July: INLAY
- Wordle #1108, Monday 1 July: ADAGE
- Wordle #1107, Sunday 30 June: BUDDY
- Wordle #1106, Saturday 29 June: ZEBRA
- Wordle #1105, Friday 28 June: DROVE
- Wordle #1104, Thursday 27 June: ORDER
- Wordle #1103, Wednesday 26 June: KNEAD
- Wordle #1102, Tuesday 25 June: SAVOR
- Wordle #1101, Monday 24 June: DOLLY
- Wordle #1100, Sunday 23 June: BUGLE
- Wordle #1099, Saturday 22 June: EDICT
- Wordle #1098, Friday 21 June: PAINT
- Wordle #1097, Thursday 20 June: SCENT
- Wordle #1096, Wednesday 19 June: TERSE
- Wordle #1095, Tuesday 18 June: COVER
- Wordle #1094, Monday 17 June: PRIOR
- Wordle #1093, Sunday 16 June: GRIND
- Wordle #1092, Saturday 15 June: PROUD
- Wordle #1091, Friday 14 June: VAULT
- Wordle #1090, Thursday 13 June: ANGST
- Wordle #1089, Wednesday 12 June: DETER
- Wordle #1088, Tuesday 11 June: SWUNG
- Wordle #1087, Monday 10 June: MANGA
- Wordle #1086, Sunday 9 June: CROWD
- Wordle #1085, Saturday 8 June: HENCE
- Wordle #1084, Friday 7 June: MELON
- Wordle #1083, Thursday 6 June: ETHER
- Wordle #1082, Wednesday 5 June: ORGAN
- Wordle #1081, Tuesday 4 June: GROOM
- Wordle #1080, Monday 3 June: STARK
- Wordle #1079, Sunday 2 June: BRAVO
- Wordle #1078, Saturday 1 June: BASIN
- Wordle #1077, Friday 31 May: CHAOS
- Wordle #1076, Thursday 30 May: GUMMY
- Wordle #1075, Wednesday 29 May: PAPAL
- Wordle #1074, Tuesday 28 May: MINUS
- Wordle #1073, Monday 27 May: SKIER
- Wordle #1072, Sunday 26 May: BEVEL
- Wordle #1071, Saturday 25 May: TITAN
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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