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 #1176) – 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 #1176) – 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 #1176) – 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 #1176) – 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 #1176) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1176.
- Today’s Wordle answer rightfully possesses something.
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 #1176)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SANER (11 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: ALARM (446)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1176) is… OWNER.
Good news, everyone – it’s an ER word! Yes, these most fiendish of Wordle answers usually turn up every 15-20 days to throw a spanner in the works of anyone with a lengthy streak to protect. They are among the most difficult of all Wordle types – and today’s is no exception, with an average score right now of 4.1.
The reason why they’re so challenging is simple: there are too many of them – 141 in total, a detail I dig into in my analysis of every Wordle answer. As a result, even once you identify that ER ending you have a wide pool of possible answers to narrow down. And to make things worse, there’s a huge pool of letters that can fill the three spaces before that ER ending. One of them will be a vowel, and one a consonant, but the identity of the third is a complete mystery at that stage.
But that said, there is one type of ER word that isn’t usually quite so tough – and today’s is one of them. These are the ER words in which the first vowel goes at the start, rather than sitting in the second position as with POWER or COVER or TAMER. And on the plus side, these are generally easier to solve than the other kind.
I have a record of the average score for 53 of the ER words to have so far appeared in Wordle, dating back to game #288, FEWER, in April 2022. Between them, they have an average of 4.3 – way higher than the 3.9 that Wordle has overall.
However, if you look only at the 13 ER answers that start with a vowel (the likes of UNDER, AFTER, ORDER and ETHER), that average drops to 4.0.
Why would this be? Well, if the vowel is at the start then the likelihood is that it will be followed by two consonants (OUTER is the only exception so far). And not all consonants sit together well – for instance you’ll never get a word that has the format OJK, because J and K don’t pair. Whereas if they’re separated by a vowel, you can get JOKER, one of the hardest ER words (and hardest Wordles) yet.
So there you go – that’s why today’s ER word might be slightly easier than some – while still being harder than most other Wordles. Phew!
As it happens, my game went rather smoothly. My start word was a disaster, admittedly, but that’s nothing new; today, ALARM left me with 446 possible answers. However, it did give me that yellow R, and so I thought I’d guard against the chance of an ER word by playing one next, to rule it out.
And I got incredibly lucky with my choice of word, TONER, which WordleBot rated as 92 for skill and 97 for luck; I’m not sure I’ve ever had a higher luck than skill score before.
That gave me the final three letters of the answer, plus a yellow O, and remarkably left only one more solution, OWNER. That meant I was able to score a 3/6 and beat WordleBot – which is always a bonus.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1175)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1175, 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 R.
R is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter. Despite ranking third overall in Wordle, it’s merely the 11th most likely to begin an answer.
- 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 N.
N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it’s the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1175.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a repeat.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1175)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 5
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SANER (18 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SNOWY (228)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1175) was… RERUN.
I really, really didn’t enjoy this Wordle. That’s partly because it is a difficult one, with an average score right now of 4.1, and partly because it took me five guesses to solve it, and falling below the average always annoys me. But mostly it’s because I made an INCREDIBLY STUPID MISTAKE (caps genuinely needed for emphasis here) that cost me one full guess.
I really can’t state how angry I am at myself. It was a rookie mistake, the kind of thing I’d expect from someone who plays casually, not someone who has written about the game every day for more than two years. It was ridiculous.
And it’s not like this isn’t a tough enough Wordle anyway. As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, R is a relatively common letter to be repeated – there are 60 games in which you’ll find two Rs – but 60 out of the original 2,309 solutions is still only 2.6%, so it’s only relatively common in comparison to other repeats. The RER format is also unsual; Rs, when repeated, either tend to be at the start and end (RIVER, ROVER, REFER), or together (FURRY, MERRY). I didn’t spot it as a possibility until late on, and I suspect others may struggle to do so too.
I wasn’t helped by my start word, SNOWY, which left 228 possible answers. CRANE, with 33, fared much better – although STARE (185) and SLATE (328) were also unlucky. By coincidence, my second guess was CRANE – and as you’d expect, that worked really well, reducing my shortlist to 10.
So far, so good(ish). But things got better still next, because I played DINER, reasoning that an ER word was a possibility and that I ought to identify it as soon as I could. It wasn’t an ER word, as it turned out – but it did cut my answers down to only one.
And here’s where I made a mistake. I rushed it. I knew the N had to be at the start or end, and by playing around with the letters I spotted NERVY. It fit – my yellow N, E and R could all go in those places – so I played it. But I’d somehow missed the fact that the Y was already ruled out, probably because it had been part of my random start word, rather than chosen directly by me. So of course NERVY couldn’t really be the solution.
I spotted the mistake immediately, and that the answer therefore had to be RERUN, but by then the damage had been done. So frustrating.
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 #1175, Friday 6 September: RERUN
- Wordle #1174, Thursday 5 September: WIDEN
- Wordle #1173, Wednesday 4 September: STERN
- Wordle #1172, Tuesday 3 September: FAINT
- Wordle #1171, Monday 2 September: CAMEL
- Wordle #1170, Sunday 1 September: MUSHY
- Wordle #1169, Saturday 31 August: SPOUT
- 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
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.
Services Marketplace – Listings, Bookings & Reviews