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 #1161) – 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 #1161) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1161) – 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 #1161) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is H.
H is a regular visitor to the final spot in a Wordle word. It occurs 137 times at the end of a Wordle answer, making it the sixth most common letter there.
Wordle hints (game #1161) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1161.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a blood-sucker.
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 #1161)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: PLACE (2 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SPARK (678)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1161) is… LEECH.
There’s something about leeches that have always fascinated me. I remember watching the 1986 movie Stand by Me when I was about 11 or 12 and being horrified by the scene in which the four protagonists are covered in the blood-suckers. Soon after, I went swimming with friends in a river near my house and on the way, tall tales were shared of how the river was filled with leeches. It took a lot to persuade me to go in! But of course there were no leeches, or none that attached themselves to us. I was almost disappointed at the anticlimax.
Anyway, I rather like them today, because LEECH gave me my first three all week. And it’s a good one, too; WordleBot says the word has an average score of 3.9, making it far tougher than yesterday’s BRUTE, albeit still at or below the average.
It has a repeated letter E, which is both the most common letter overall and the most likely to appear multiple times, as detailed in my analysis of every Wordle answer. Finding a repeated E is a lot easier than locating two Fs or two Ps or two Ms, let alone two Vs or Zs. It will have made the game a little tougher today, but not by much. And the other letters are all pretty common, H aside. That one only ranks 14th on its own, but forms half of the second most common ending combination with C, so it’s usually easy to uncover.
There were a few very good start word performances today, for instance TRACE (8 remaining words), LEAST (10) and PLACE (3), but most of the popular choices were either a little or a lot higher. CRANE left 21, SLATE left 98 and poor old STARE left 248.
I’d have been delighted with even that last result – because my random opener was SPARK, and that left 678. Remarkably, I reduced that to only three on the next guess, with CLONE proving to be incredibly lucky/inspired (delete according to how charitable you’re feeling).
My three options were LEECH, BELCH and EXCEL – and the good news is that any of those would have ruled out the two wrong answers. There was no reason to pick one over the others beyond which word was most likely, and I decided that BELCH in particular might not be an actual answer, so decided to skip that. EXCEL probably is – but I had a hunch it was a past Wordle answer, so went with LEECH.
My instinct was correct on both accounts: EXCEL appeared in December 2022, and LEECH was indeed the solution today. Hurrah!
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1160)
In a different time zone where it’s still Thursday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1160, 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 B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and 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 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.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1160.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a crude or cruel person.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1160)
- NYT average score: 3.5
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: TRACE, TRADE (3 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: POSER (164)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1160) was… BRUTE.
Some days you just have to look up at the skies and accept that it wasn’t to be. There’s nothing you could have done differently, luck just wasn’t on your side.
Today was one of those days for me: I scored a four when the average is an ultra-low 3.5, and when WordleBot managed a three. But things simply didn’t fall into place for me, with WordleBot awarding me an average skill score of 99 out of 99, but a luck score of… 48. Somewhere, a black cat is lurking, ready to cross my path. (My cat is a tortoiseshell. Does that count?)
It was a shame, because BRUTE is not a difficult Wordle. It contains five common letters, or at least four common letters and one (B) that’s not common in general, but that is very, very likely to start a word. There are no repeats, all the letters are in places where you’d expect them, and the word is widely used. Nothing to beware of here.
Well, other than poor luck on your start word. Mine today was POSER, which could have been a great choice, but which unfortunately left 164 options here. In contrast, the likes of TRACE (3), CRATE (4) and CARTE (5) were all very helpful, while SLATE (14) and STARE (16) were not far behind.
A poor start doesn’t always lead to a below-par result, of course, but though my second guess was a good one, it wasn’t quite good enough for me to turn things around.
I played CRATE, because it placed my yellow R and E into their likeliest positions, and added in three of most common letters remaining, T, C and A. And it worked really well, cutting 164 options to three: WRITE, BRUTE and TRITE. A bit of luck now would see me score that 3/6.
But it wasn’t to be. I picked WRITE first, and had to settle for a four when that turned out to not be the answer. Oh well.
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 #1160, Thursday 22 August: BRUTE
- Wordle #1159, Wednesday 21 August: MULCH
- Wordle #1158, Tuesday 20 August: DELAY
- Wordle #1157, Monday 19 August: METER
- 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
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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