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 #1157) – 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 #1157) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1157) – 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 #1157) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is R.
R is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – it’s actually the 4th most common there, behind E, Y and T.
Wordle hints (game #1157) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1157.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a thing for measuring.
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 #1157)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: TASER (15 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: AXION (487)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1157) is… METER.
I spend a lot of time in this column talking about ER words, and with good reason: they’re incredibly common in Wordle (and in the world at large). As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, there are a massive 141 solutions (out of the original 2,309) that end in ER; that’s about 6% of the total, and way ahead of the second most common endings in the game, CH and LY, which each end only 56 answers.
But – as regular readers (and players) will know – they’re typically among the most difficult words to solve, simply because there are so many of them. And to make matters worse, there are a multitude of different combinations that can fill those first three letters.
The task is made harder still if there’s a repeated letter involved, so it’s no surprise that at the time of writing METER has an average score of 4.1, according to WordleBot – a tiny bit below yesterday’s LANKY (4.2, see below), but higher than the norm for Wordle, which sits at 3.9.
It’s not as high as some ER answers, though, because T in particular is a very common letter; compare the task to, for instance, that which awaited players for JOKER or FEWER and you can see why it’s not up in the 5.0 range.
Still, it is a difficult one – and also one that very few of the best (or most popular) start words helped much with. The most successful of WordleBot’s top 20 was TASER, which left only 15, but CRANE was at 191 and SLATE at 117. STARE fared better, at 43 – but that’s still a fair few words to whittle down.
Not that STARE players should feel too hard done by, though – I had more than 10 times that many answers left! My random opener today was AXION, which is a word I didn’t even know the meaning of when I played it (apparently it’s a hypothetical subatomic particle) and which left me 487 options.
I’m quite pleased to have solved it in four from there, and much of that success rested on my second choice, CUTER. I picked this specifically because I thought it could be an ER word, and the fact that I put the T in the middle too was pure good luck.
That left me only four words: DETER, METER, PETER and ESTER, all of which I found independently of WordleBot’s analysis (which you can only see after you’ve played). I needed a word to narrow them down, then, and went for TEPID – if the P turned yellow it would be PETER, if the D it would be DETER, if the E stayed gray it would be ESTER, if the E turned green but the D and P didn’t change color, it would be METER.
The latter scenario was the one that played out, so I was able to enter METER on the fourth guess and escape unscathed from a nasty ER word (for once).
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1156)
In a different time zone where it’s still Sunday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1156, too.
- Wordle yesterday had 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).
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was L.
L is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter in Wordle. Despite being the sixth most common letter overall, it’s only ranked 12th at the beginning of a word.
- 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 #1156.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is tall and thin.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1156)
- NYT average score: 4.2
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: LEAST (10 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SPINE (116)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1156) was… LANKY.
Of all Wordle’s answers so far, this might be the least apt description of me, I’m sorry to say. It’s also the hardest Wordle for almost a week, since the incredibly tough SKIFF last Monday.
It has very little in common with that word, though, beyond the fact that both contain a K. I suppose the other thing that unites them is that neither is that common of a word. LANKY is probably in wider usage than SKIFF, admittedly, but it is more informal than Wordle generally is, and that may have caught out a few people today. But there are no repeated letters, and no really uncommon ones either.
K is the closest to a complication on that front: it’s ranked 20th out of the 26 letters, and is generally found at the end of a word rather than elsewhere. But position #4 is its second most common spot, and it jumps up to 15th here, where it often appears before a Y and after either L (MILKY), N (PINKY), or C (PICKY).
I suspect the high-ish average today of 4.2 may be due to lots of people picking one of a couple of similarly spelled alternatives before LANKY. LACKY, in particular, was what I chose for my third guess, but looking at WordleBot’s data it appears that MANLY was the more common pick.
Either way, it took me four guesses today, and WordleBot the same, so it’s safe to say that it’s not a walk in the park.
It’s not one where the popular start words helped all that much; CRANE left 65 answers, SLATE left 75, STARE left 191. My random opener was SPINE, which was in-between those at 116. It’s all a way away from the riches on offer yesterday (see below).
My second word was decent without being stellar – TALON cut the possibles list to six, five of which I found. The ones I got were CANAL, BANAL, NAVAL, MANLY and LANKY, but I missed WANLY. Is that really likely to be an answer? I doubt it.
Anyway, I couldn’t think of an obvious way to guarantee a four so went with LACKY, as this would give me the answer unless it was one of BANAL or NAVAL. It wasn’t, so I played LANKY next and just about beat the average.
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 #1156, Sunday 18 August: LANKY
- Wordle #1155, Saturday 17 August: STORM
- Wordle #1154, Friday 16 August: BRACE
- Wordle #1153, Thursday 15 August: ACORN
- Wordle #1152, Wednesday 14 August: SHORE
- Wordle #1151, Tuesday 13 August: NEIGH
- Wordle #1150, Monday 12 August: SKIFF
- Wordle #1149, Sunday 11 August: SCONE
- Wordle #1148, Saturday 10 August: MEDIC
- Wordle #1147, Friday 9 August: OUNCE
- 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
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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