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? TechRadar’s Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at our NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for our 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 #1268) – 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 #1268) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is H.
H is not a particularly common starting letter in Wordle: only 69 games begin with it, and it ranks in 15th place.
Wordle hints (game #1268) – 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 #1268) – 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 #1268) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1268.
- Today’s Wordle answer is an animal.
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 #1268)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CRANE (4 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: VOWEL (454)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1268) is… HYENA.
Let’s talk about animals and Wordle! We have had, I think, 30 animals as Wordle words so far, ranging from HERON way back in November 2021 (the first of them) through to today’s HYENA. We’ve had big ones such as WHALE, RHINO, MOOSE and the recent HIPPO, small ones such as MOUSE and LEECH and really, really small ones like APHID and MIDGE. We’ve had feathered ones (ROBIN, GOOSE, FINCH) and scaled ones (GECKO and SNAKE) and striped ones (TIGER and ZEBRA). We’ve had some that are other things as well as animals – CRANE and SLOTH and SKATE, for instance. And we’ve had some that were very difficult to solve: EGRET and KOALA stand out here.
If you want to be creative, we’ve also had lots of other animal-themed words (not included in those 30): GROWL, SNOUT, BEAST and TALON, for instance. And then we’ve had some that definitely aren’t animals but that almost could be, such as GOOFY (he’s a dog, right?) and, er, DOGMA. OK, maybe not.
What’s left? Well, hundreds possibly although more likely dozens. Maybe one day we’ll get SHEEP or BISON or SHARK or SQUID or CHICK or my absolute favorite, PUPPY.
Today, though, it’s the turn of HYENA – an uncommonly spelled word for an uncommonly built creature. Is it a dog? Is it a big(ish) cat? Neither, actually – the HYENA is its own distinct family that sits awkwardly alone, laughing. Apparently – and I fully admit I got this from Wikipedia today – the aardwolf is one of the four types of hyena, and rather than hunting as the others do it eats termites – as many as 300,000 each night, which sounds a bit greedy to me.
As for the word, well it contains a Y in a place where you wouldn’t expect it, and starts with the relatively uncommon H (the second day in a row we’ve had that as our opening letter). WordleBot says it has an average score of 4.0, but I suspect many people will find it harder than that sounds. That’s because CRANE – one of the most common start words – left only four possible answers.
I did not have such luck, with VOWEL leaving 454 of them. STARE was my unimaginative second guess and brought them down to 16, so I still had a fair bit of work to do. I figured that the -E-A- format was now the most likely; I had the likes of DECAY, PECAN and BEGAN on my shortlist. But I’d actually missed a lot of good words, including AHEAD, AMEND and CHEAP, so I was rather fortunate that my third guess, DECAY, cut the words list to one. That was HYENA, and once I found it (which took me a while) I played it for my par four.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1267)
In a different time zone where it’s still Saturday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1267, 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 H.
H is not a particularly common starting letter in Wordle: only 69 games begin with it, and it ranks in 15th place.
- 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 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 #1267.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is up and down.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1267)
- NYT average score: 4.2
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: STALE (49 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: FLUNG (361)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1267) was… HILLY.
I don’t know for sure how many -ILLY words there will be in Wordle, but I do know that the game accepts 10 as answers: BILLY, DILLY, FILLY, GILLY, HILLY, MILLY, TILLY, RILLY, SILLY and WILLY. To which the obvious reaction is: RILLY? Really? The others I can make a case for, even if some are clearly proper nouns only, but that one is simply baffling.
In fact, I suspect that no more than six of those are real solutions; probably BILLY, WILLY and DILLY, definitely SILLY, FILLY and HILLY. However, the sheer number of possibilities certainly foxed Wordlers today and led to this one having an average score of 4.2.
HILLY is arguably the most likely answer among them, but H is not the most common letter and so people may not have considered it until relatively late on. Judging by WordleBot’s report, other similar words – notably HIPPY – may also have led people astray.
And of course there’s that repeated L, too; this is common among repeated letters, but still rare in the context of Wordle as a whole, with 71 instance among the original 2,309 answers. What may have helped identify it, at least, is that LLY as a three-letter ending combo is the second most frequent, behind ING. When hunting words you will probably have stumbled across that format quite quickly, simply because there are so many of them.
I had to settle for a four yesterday, but I’m pleased enough with that given my start word FLUNG, which left 361 words. STALE was chosen for the frequency of its letters but was unlucky and left 28. And then I had my lucky guess – I usually get one – in the form of CHILD. This gave me two more yellow letters to join my green L and left only the one possible answer. And with the H being among those yellows, I didn’t have to worry about it maybe being FILLY, SILLY or indeed RILLY (in the very unlikely event that the latter is a real answer).
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 #1267, Saturday 7 December: HILLY
- Wordle #1266, Friday 6 December: SHOVE
- Wordle #1265, Thursday 5 December: ENDOW
- Wordle #1264, Wednesday 4 December: CRYPT
- Wordle #1263, Tuesday 3 December: SHAKY
- Wordle #1262, Monday 2 December: GUILE
- Wordle #1261, Sunday 1 December: MAUVE
- Wordle #1260, Saturday 30 November: DOGMA
- Wordle #1259, Friday 29 November: HIPPO
- Wordle #1258, Thursday 28 November: CHOCK
- Wordle #1257, Wednesday 27 November: SLANG
- Wordle #1256, Tuesday 26 November: WITCH
- Wordle #1255, Monday 25 November: BROWN
- Wordle #1254, Sunday 24 November: TWIST
- Wordle #1253, Saturday 23 November: JELLY
- Wordle #1252, Friday 22 November: PEARL
- Wordle #1251, Thursday 21 November: SPINE
- Wordle #1250, Wednesday 20 November: NICHE
- Wordle #1249, Tuesday 19 November: GOING
- Wordle #1248, Monday 18 November: FRAIL
- Wordle #1247, Sunday 17 November: TALLY
- Wordle #1246, Saturday 16 November: VISOR
- Wordle #1245, Friday 15 November: TACKY
- Wordle #1244, Thursday 14 November: UVULA
- 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
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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