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 #1147) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has vowels in three 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 #1147) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is O.
Vowels are generally less common than you’d expect at the start of a word, and O is only the 17th most likely letter to begin a Wordle answer.
Wordle hints (game #1147) – 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 #1147) – 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 #1147) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1147.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a weight.
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 #1147)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CRANE (11 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SERIF (388)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1147) is… OUNCE.
Wordles with three or more vowels are typically much easier to solve than those with one (or none). The average for the game overall (from the nearly 900 Wordles I have a score for) is currently 3.962. For those answers with one or zero vowels, that goes up to 3.998 – but for those with three or four, it drops to 3.942.
It’s not a huge difference, admittedly, but it’s there – and it’s understandable. Vowels are easier to find than consonants, because there are only five standard vowels but 21 consonants. Plus, most of the best – and most popular – start words contain two, three or even four vowels (in the case of AUDIO and ADIEU).
OUNCE not only contains three vowels, but the two consonants are also the super-common C and N, so you’d expect it to have a nice, low average today. At the time of writing, it’s at 3.8 – which is below the average, but not super-low. I suspect it may drop further over time, though, because there’s really nothing to fear here.
As is usually the case, a couple of popular start words made big inroads into the answers list today: AUDIO, the second most-played opener of all, left 14, while CRANE was at 11. Others were not so lucky, with STARE leaving 107, for instance. My opener today was SERIF, and it was in the latter category – and then some. SERIF was “a strong opening guess,” said WordleBot, but it left a whopping 388 options.
OUNCE’s easiness is reflected by the fact that I still got home in three despite that start. With S and R ruled out I wanted to include three from T, L, C and N, plus either A or O as a second vowel. CLONE was my pick, and it was incredibly lucky, giving me yellow C, O and N, and turning the E green. That left me with only one answer left, so I played it next for my 3/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1146)
In a different time zone where it’s still Thursday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1146, 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 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 Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1146.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is brazen or cheeky.
Yesterday’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
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1146) was… 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.
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 #1146, Thursday 8 August: SAUCY
- 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
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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