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 #1169) – 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 #1169) – 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 #1169) – 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 #1169) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Wordle hints (game #1169) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1169.
- Today’s Wordle answer excels at pouring water.
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 #1169)
- NYT average score: 3.7
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: PLATE, SAINT (18 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: KAPPA (204)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1169) is… SPOUT.
It should be no surprise to anyone that today’s Wordle answer has a low average score of 3.7 at the time of writing. Four of the letters are ultra-common, after all, with P the only outlier; that ranks 15th overall and is most commonly found at the start of an answer. But it’s not truly uncommon as the likes of V and K are, let alone X and J, so it’s unlikely to have derailed anyone’s game today.
What’s more, the S-at-the-start-and-T-at-the-end combination is one of the likeliest in the game; of Wordle’s 2,309 original solutions, 41 have that S—T format, behind only S—Y (42) and S—E (74).
Lots of popular start words contain S and T, and indeed several feature an O or U too, so again this will have helped to lower the average. So, what did my random word generator serve up for me? KAPPA. Yeah, thanks for that.
However, while four of the letters were useless, it did give me the P for SPOUT (and a second one that I didn’t need, for good measure), which ended up helping me down the line. I correctly predicted that the S—T format might come into play, because now that I knew I had a P to fit in, there was a good chance it would follow an S. I included an E, too, just in case it was an SP–E word (SPORE, say) and played SPENT.
WordleBot liked this, and it cut my options list to 5 – not bad from 204. But that was still too many for me to be likely to score a three today. I found all of the five words – SPORT, SPOUT, SPILT, SPLIT and SPURT – but what to play next?
Well, SPORT would guarantee me a four unless the answer was SPLIT or SPILT, and would guarantee me a three if it was correct obviously. So I went with that, and though it wasn’t right it pointed the way to SPOUT for my 4/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1168)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1168, 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 K.
K is not a common starting letter in Wordle by any measure. In fact it ranks 22nd out of 26; a mere 20 answers begin with a K.
- 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 #1168.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a deceitful person.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1168)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CRANE, SNARE (3 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: WREAK (19)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1168) was… KNAVE.
I enjoyed a double dose of good fortune yesterday, and that led me to a score of 3/6 on a day when the global average is at 4.0.
It was just as well, because KNAVE is fundamentally a tricky Wordle to solve. For starters, it has that unusual KN opening, one that is shared by only nine other solutions. This is the sixth we’ve had, with the previous examples being KNOLL (game #219), KNOCK (#539), KNEEL (#710), KNELT (#845) and KNEAD (#1103), meaning there are only four more to worry about. And no, I don’t know what they all are – though I can think of at least two of them.
There’s also a V in there, and as I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, V is the fifth least likely letter to appear in the game, ahead of only Z, X, Q and J (and K is only just ahead of them, at seventh least likely). And to further complicate things, KNAVE is not exactly a widely used word compared to some. It’s not totally obscure – but when did you last say someone was a KNAVE? I’m not sure I ever have!
A high score is not necessarily unexpected today, then. But my 3/6 was, because my start word, WREAK, did not fill me with confidence. Any word with two of the more uncommon letters is unlikely to be a winner, after all – but today it worked pretty well thanks to containing A, E and – crucially – K.
That cut my possible solutions list to 19, which was a little better than the likes of SLATE (31) and STARE (29), though nowhere near as good as CRANE, which left only two. I still had work to do, though, so needed some luck on my second guess – and got it with LEAKY. This ruled out a bunch of words that contained an L – FLAKE, SLAKE, LEAKY itself – and several that used the K in position #4 (SNAKE, SHAKE, PEAKY, QUAKE). In fact, it left only two answers: KNAVE and SKATE.
As regular Wordlers will know, SKATE was a past Wordle answer less than a week ago (game #1163), so I knew it had to be KNAVE and scored my 3/6.
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 #1168, Friday 30 August: KNAVE
- Wordle #1167, Thursday 29 August: FLUNK
- Wordle #1166, Wednesday 28 August: LITHE
- Wordle #1165, Tuesday 27 August: CROWN
- Wordle #1164, Monday 26 August: STAKE
- Wordle #1163, Sunday 25 August: SKATE
- Wordle #1162, Saturday 24 August: FILET
- Wordle #1161, Friday 23 August: LEECH
- 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
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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