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. And you might need them, because today’s Wordle is so difficult it nearly cost me my 1,045-game streak.
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 #1244) – 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 #1244) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is U.
U is not a particularly common starting letter in Wordle, with only 33 answers beginning with it. It ranks 20th in this regard, and is the least common vowel to start an answer.
Wordle hints (game #1244) – 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 #1244) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is A.
A is a relatively common ending letter. It ranks 10th in this regard and today’s game is one of 63 in which you’ll find an A there.
Wordle hints (game #1244) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1244.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a part of the body.
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 #1244)
- NYT average score: 4.9
- My score: 5
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: STALE (19 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: PALER (87)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1244) is… UVULA.
Well, this was fun wasn’t it? UVULA is quite possibly the most difficult word yet to appear in Wordle, although it isn’t technically the hardest to solve. That’s a contradiction, yes – but let me explain.
As a Wordle answer, UVULA is very, very difficult, of that there’s no doubt. It has an average score of 4.9 at the time of writing, which places it above 96% of all answers for which I have a recorded score (there are 956 of these). However, it’s not the hardest ever, because the likes of PARER (6.3 average), MUMMY (5.8) and CORER (5.7) have all comfortably exceeded its total.
That is of course because while those three are all common words (to an extent, in the case of CORER and PARER) with common spelling formats and common letters, they are monumentally tough to solve in Wordle. That’s because there are multiple other words that could be the answer, or because they contain repeated letters, or both of those factors.
UVULA is a different beast, though. The problems here – and there are several – are that the word itself is downright obscure, and that it contains uncommon letters, and that format-wise it is quite frankly all over the place.
That average score of 4.9 is in some ways misleading, then, but in others it makes sense. It’s very difficult, but eventually committed Wordlers will solve it, simply because they’ll run out of alternative options. With a game like PARER, however, there was a very real chance that you’d run out of guesses before options. My suspicion is that people will have played the likes of PARER fairly quickly and failed, but spent ages on UVULA and eventually solved it.
That’s how my game went, at least. I started with PALER, chosen at random, and had a pretty decent result. PALER was, said WordleBot, a “strong” opening guess, and it gave me two yellow letters, an A and an L. This left me with 87 words, which wasn’t all that bad considering CRANE was at 187 and STARE at 191.
I did the obvious thing on my second guess, and moved those two yellows into their most common places: L went in slot #2, and A in the middle. Adding the very common S, T and N was a no-brainer, and gave me SLANT.
WordleBot said this was a “terrific choice”, but it was unlucky, failing to uncover any more letters or turn either of my yellows green. I now had 16 words left, apparently, though I didn’t know this at the time.
In order to try to find out where those letters went I next played LOCAL. This was one of a handful of possible answers I found, together with LOYAL, FOCAL, VOCAL, AWFUL, OFFAL and MODAL. Including the L twice gave me two chances to turn it green – and surely it would be either at the start or end?
Unfortunately not. Both letters stayed stubbornly yellow, which was a little ridiculous at this stage of the game. Incredibly, WordleBot told me afterwards that I now had only one answer left – but I still had no idea what it was. After all, I still had no idea where any of the letters went!
Actually, I did know something: the L now had to go in the fourth position. The A, meanwhile, could still be at the start of end, so A–L- or —LA. However, no matter how hard I looked I simply couldn’t find a word that fit. Nothing. Zip.
After an excessively long time trying to solve it, I decided there was nothing for it but to play a word that couldn’t be right simply to narrow things down. I do this all the time, of course, but not usually when I only have two yellows and no idea at all of what format the word might even take. I went with AUDIO, because I wanted to turn that A green and also see if either U or I might be a second vowel.
Finally, I had some success: the A stayed yellow, which meant it had to be at the end, while the U was also confirmed as being in play.
The U was the key to it all, as it happened – understandably, given that it appears twice here, one of only 11 answers where it does that. I played around with various options and after a while spotted UVULA as a word that I thought I knew. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was – though I did think it was something to do with the mouth (it’s the fleshy dangly bit between the tonsils). I played it with a certain amount of doubt, though, and was mightily relieved when all five letters turned green. What a rollercoaster of emotions!
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1243)
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1243, 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 P.
P is a very common first letter among Wordle answers. It’s the fifth most common in the alphabet and begins 141 solutions in total.
- 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 P.
P is a middling end letter in Wordle. It features in 56 answers, which places it 12th in the alphabet. Don’t expect it to happen that often compared to the likes of E, Y and T.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1243.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is to dress with care.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1243)
- NYT average score: 4.5 (revised)
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: PARSE (15 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SAUCE (326)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1243) was… PRIMP.
Here’s a fact for you: only two of Wordle’s 2,309 original solutions start and end with a P. Here’s another one for you: PRIMP is not one of them.
Yes, this is one of the extra words that the NYT has added into the game since it began in 2021; the ninth of them, to be exact. We had another only a few weeks ago in the form of MOMMY (game #1,208) and there’s no knowing when we’ll get the next one.
None of that is particularly important in its own right – though it is interesting, arguably – but it’s worth noting that after POLYP (game #778) and now PRIMP, there is still at least one more P—P to come. And that is important, because these games are seemingly much harder than standard Wordles.
That shouldn’t be a surprise, really, given that Wordles with repeated letters are always slightly harder than those without, but based on our study of two, P—P words are particularly tough; PRIMP has an average of 4.7, (note – revised to 4.5) while POLYP was at 4.3.
Some of that difficulty will be explained by the fact that very few starting words were even remotely helpful today. Among WordleBot’s top 20, only five dipped below 50 remaining solutions, and none left fewer than 10. Still, it could be worse: my random opener, SAUCE, left 326 options!
If that was unlucky (and it was), my second guess flipped the game on its head. The most common remaining letters were R, T, L, N, O and I, but I couldn’t think of a good word that contained five of them. Instead, I added the P into the mix purely because I knew that it was a very common opening letter and it enabled me to play POINT.
POINT was extraordinarily fortunate, giving me green P and I, and cutting my word list to only two: PRIVY and PRIMP. I had no reason to choose one over the other, beyond the fact that one contained a repeated letter and one didn’t. I went for the one without, and when that was wrong had to settle for a 4/6. At the time that felt like a defeat – it’s always frustrating to lose a 50/50 guess – but given the high average score today, I’ve decided a four is just fine after all.
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 #1243, Wednesday 13 November: PRIMP
- Wordle #1242, Tuesday 12 November: FLOWN
- Wordle #1241, Monday 11 November: STOIC
- Wordle #1240, Sunday 10 November: INNER
- Wordle #1239, Saturday 9 November: SWELL
- Wordle #1238, Friday 8 November: READY
- Wordle #1237, Thursday 7 November: EVENT
- Wordle #1236, Wednesday 6 November: TRULY
- Wordle #1235, Tuesday 5 November: OCTET
- Wordle #1234, Monday 4 November: VINYL
- Wordle #1233, Sunday 3 November: BLAZE
- Wordle #1232, Saturday 2 November: SNOOP
- Wordle #1231, Friday 1 November: SIXTH
- Wordle #1230, Thursday 31 October: WEIRD
- Wordle #1229, Wednesday 30 October: EASEL
- Wordle #1228, Tuesday 29 October: TUNIC
- Wordle #1227, Monday 28 October: BAWDY
- Wordle #1226, Sunday 27 October: SANDY
- Wordle #1225, Saturday 26 October: WREAK
- Wordle #1224, Friday 25 October: FROWN
- Wordle #1223, Thursday 24 October: BOSSY
- Wordle #1222, Wednesday 23 October: GOOFY
- Wordle #1221, Tuesday 22 October: SHOUT
- Wordle #1220, Monday 21 October: SPOON
- Wordle #1219, Sunday 20 October: DICEY
- Wordle #1218, Saturday 19 October: FIBER
- Wordle #1217, Friday 18 October: STINT
- Wordle #1216, Thursday 17 October: HALVE
- Wordle #1215, Wednesday 16 October: GRANT
- Wordle #1214, Tuesday 15 October: CORER
- Wordle #1213, Monday 14 October: GAMUT
- Wordle #1212, Sunday 13 October: PRONE
- Wordle #1211, Saturday 12 October: STAIN
- Wordle #1210, Friday 11 October: GUSTY
- Wordle #1209, Thursday 10 October: CARVE
- Wordle #1208, Wednesday 9 October: MOMMY
- Wordle #1207, Tuesday 8 October: JOINT
- Wordle #1206, Monday 7 October: FLOUR
- Wordle #1205, Sunday 6 October: LAGER
- Wordle #1204, Saturday 5 October: MINER
- Wordle #1203, Friday 4 October: TITLE
- Wordle #1202, Thursday 3 October: WAGON
- Wordle #1201, Wednesday 2 October: SHELL
- Wordle #1200, Tuesday 1 October: MODEM
- Wordle #1199, Monday 30 September: CLOUD
- Wordle #1198, Sunday 29 September: RIDER
- Wordle #1197, Saturday 28 September: BRAIN
- Wordle #1196, Friday 27 September: FAITH
- Wordle #1195, Thursday 26 September: THANK
- Wordle #1194, Wednesday 25 September: TORCH
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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