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 #1146) – 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 #1146) – 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 #1146) – 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 #1146) – 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 #1146) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1146.
- Today’s Wordle answer is brazen or cheeky.
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 #1146)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: TRACE (4 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: GRUNT (69)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1146) is… SAUCY.
I didn’t cover myself in glory today, escaping with a four that could easily have been a five, but should probably have been a three. But it wasn’t a disaster.
That said, I doubt it will be a disaster for anyone; SAUCY has an average score of 3.9 and is a lot easier than yesterday’s MACAW. That’s chiefly a matter of probability: it starts with the most common starting letter, ends with the second most common ending letter, and contains three very common letters in-between.
As a word, it’s reasonably common, although less so than its near-alternative SAUCE, which was played by a fair few people on guesses two and three. However, many people will have ruled out the E on the first guess, because seven of the nine most popular openers contain that letter.
The best starter was TRACE, which left only four answers, but a couple of other top picks reduced the options list to below 30: SLATE was at 22 and STARE at 24, both helped by having that S at the start.
My opener today was GRUNT, which WordleBot described as “strong” and which performed reasonably well, cutting the shortlist to 69. A better second guess might have cut that to only a handful: WordleBot suggested CLASP or SCALP, which would have left three and two respectively. Instead, I went with HOLES, reasoning that my green U might form part of an OUSE pattern (HOUSE, MOUSE, LOUSE) or an OUCH pattern (COUCH, POUCH, VOUCH).
I was on the wrong track, though, and HOLES gave me only a yellow S and left seven options. At least I knew that it would likely go at the start for S-U–, and found two words: SCUFF and SCUBA. I completely missed SAUCY, plus four SQ words – SQUIB, SQUAB, SQUAD and SQUID.
That was an oversight, and one that could have come back to haunt me, because I went with SCOFF next and if the answer had been one of those four SQ answers, I might have ended up with a five or worse. As it is, SCOFF was wrong but also ruled out the others, and left SAUCY as my only option.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1145)
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1145, 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 M.
M is a middling letter when it comes to starting a word. It sits 10th in the rankings, with 107 occurrences in the 2,309 answers.
- 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 W.
W is an uncommon ending letter in Wordle. A mere 17 games finish with one, out of 2,309 original answers.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1145.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a bird.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1145)
- NYT average score: 4.4 (revised)
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CARTE, CARET (16 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: EIGHT (536)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1145) was… MACAW.
MACAWs are great, right? They’re the classic parrot of the sitting-on-your-shoulder-and-saying-hello variety, and clearly one of the best birds. But as a Wordle word, I suspect it will annoy a lot of people.
Not because MACAW shouldn’t be an answer in Wordle – after all, birds have featured in a few Wordles now. For instance, we’ve had ROBIN (#239), GOOSE (#357), EGRET (#378) and FINCH (#1,022) before, and you could throw in CLUCK (#46) and PERCH (#157) for further bird-related words, maybe.
However, it is undeniably a difficult Wordle to solve, as proven by the fact that its average score is currently 4.5 [note: revised to 4.4]. Some of that may be the word itself – great though MACAWs are, it’s not a common word in the way that LOWER or SUPER is.
What’s more, it has that repeated A in it, and also ends in a W. That latter point is a big one; as my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, W only finishes 17 of the game’s 2,309 original solutions. That places it above only I, B, X, Z, U and V in that regard, so it’s not something you’d necessarily think to play for.
M and C, meanwhile, are more common letters in general, but C is a lot less likely to appear in the middle of a word than it is at the start. Placing the W and C may well have proved tricky today.
A few start words helped, at least, with CRANE leaving 37, CRATE 32, and CARTE/CARET only 16. But it’s only really the first of those that is used by many Wordlers, and lots of other options left many more choices. STARE, for instance, was at 191, and SLATE at 201.
My random opener was EIGHT, and that was even worse. In fact, a lot worse: it left 536 possible solutions. But on the plus side, it did rule out two vowels and one common consonant, which made it easier for me to pick a follow-up word.
I decided to go with SOLAR, because I wanted those three common consonants in there, plus the two most common remaining vowels. I also considered CAROL and SONAR, but any of those three would have done a good job; WordleBot told me afterwards that SOLAR reduced the answers to six, whereas CAROL would have left four, and SONAR eight.
I had half a dozen words to find, then, but I didn’t know it at the time. In fact, I could only find one, MADAM. And that left me with something of a dilemma – because I thought it might have been a past Wordle answer.
As it turns out, it had – game #387 back in 2022. But I didn’t check, and wasn’t sure, so I needed to guard against it possibly being the solution, but without wasting a guess on it. After all, MADAM only contains three letters, so I wouldn’t gain much info if it was wrong.
My compromise was to go with CANDY. This would confirm whether the A was repeated, and either point me towards MADAM or give me plenty of info about other common letters in the form of C, N, D and Y. Win-win.
And I got lucky: the A was repeated – but the answer couldn’t be MADAM, because the D stayed gray. So I needed another option, and found it in the form of MACAW. This was now the only answer left to me, and it gave me a satisfactory 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 #1145, Wednesday 7 August: MACAW
- Wordle #1144, Tuesday 6 August: ANVIL
- Wordle #1143, Monday 5 August: ENSUE
- Wordle #1142, Sunday 4 August: LOWER
- Wordle #1141, Saturday 3 August: SCALE
- Wordle #1140, Friday 2 August: FLAKE
- Wordle #1139, Thursday 1 August: CHALK
- Wordle #1138, Wednesday 31 July: PENNE
- Wordle #1137, Tuesday 30 July: FERAL
- Wordle #1136, Monday 29 July: SUPER
- Wordle #1135, Sunday 28 July: SMOCK
- Wordle #1134, Saturday 27 July: JUICE
- Wordle #1133, Friday 26 July: AWASH
- Wordle #1132, Thursday 25 July: PORCH
- Wordle #1131, Wednesday 24 July: FORTE
- Wordle #1130, Tuesday 23 July: PRONG
- Wordle #1129, Monday 22 July: CADET
- Wordle #1128, Sunday 21 July: SPECK
- Wordle #1127, Saturday 20 July: SHAFT
- Wordle #1126, Friday 19 July: REFER
- Wordle #1125, Thursday 18 July: NERDY
- Wordle #1124, Wednesday 17 July: QUITE
- Wordle #1123, Tuesday 16 July: DECOY
- 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
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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