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.
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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 #1321) – 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 #1321) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is F.
F is a very common starting letter in Wordle. It ranks seventh behind only S, C, B, T, P and A and overall there are 135 solutions that begin with this letter.
Wordle hints (game #1321) – 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 #1321) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1321) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1321.
- Today’s Wordle answer is not true.
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 #1321)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: LEAST (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: COPSE (25)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1321) is… FALSE.
I had lots and lots of lovely luck today, and it gave me my first 3/6 since Sunday. I doubt that I’d have struggled too hard even without that good fortune, though, because FALSE is a pretty easy Wordle with an average score of only 3.6.
Look at the letters and it’s obvious why; you have F, which is seventh most likely to start an answer, plus A (second overall), L (sixth), S (eighth) and E – which is of course the most common letter in the game by a big margin. There are no repeats and no rare letters; the closest thing to a complication is the fact that lots of other words contain four of those letters, for instance LAPSE, LEASE. SALVE and FABLE, all of which were played on guesses three and four today.
Even by those standards my game was an easy one. My random word generator served up COPSE, and that gave me the final two letters in green. This reduced my options to 25 in an instant, and I quickly realized that I would want an N in there for the likes of TENSE, SENSE, DENSE, an R for VERSE, RAISE and ARISE, both of those letters for RINSE and NURSE and an A for many more including FALSE itself.
LEARN seemed like a good bet; the E was reused in position #2 to guard against that double-E of VERSE and others, and the L cropped up a few times too.
WordleBot was cool on it – 87 out of 99, which is only “solid” – but it did the trick, giving me three yellows. It didn’t take long for me to see that FALSE was the only possible answer now, so I played it next for my cakewalk three.
How did you do today? Send me an email or let me know in the comments.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1320)
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1320, 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 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.
- 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 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.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1320.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is found on a cow (and some other animals).
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1320)
- NYT average score: 4.3
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 5
- Best start word performance*: TRADE (49 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: LEAST (351)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1320) was… UDDER.
I could pretty much paste the first half of the previous day’s column in here and it would all be relevant, because what we have is – yes – another ER word with another repeated letter and another average score of 4.3 or higher.
In the case of UDDER, that score is exactly 4.3, implying that it’s easier than FEVER (4.6) – albeit still far harder than most Wordles. The relative easiness probably stems from the fact that unlike FEVER, there are not many words with a similar spelling to UDDER, the ER aspect aside. Well, there is UNDER of course, but some of you may recall that as a past Wordle answer, from April 2023 (game #660).
My game followed a fairly similar path to yesterday’s, other than the fact that I had many more options to pick from on the second guess. My starter was LEAST – one of the best Wordle start words, but unfortunately unlucky here, leaving 351.
A yellow E always gets that red sign labeled ‘Possible ER word’ flashing in my brain, so I followed up with DONER and got lucky; not only did the E and R turn green at the end, but the D changed to yellow at the start, too.
This immediately cut my shortlist to eight – which was pretty good going from 351. I found six of these, too: RIDER, RUDER, CIDER, UDDER, WIDER and EDGER. The pair I missed were EIDER and HIDER, though I’m not convinced the latter is likely.
I knew that RIDER had been an answer before, because that was relatively recent, in September last year (another 4.6 game). And given that I hadn’t spotted EIDER or HIDER, I therefore decided that WIDER would work best, as it would almost guarantee me a four if wrong. Not totally guarantee – because it could still leave a 50/50 between UDDER and RUDER, but I thought that was a risk worth taking.
This could have backfired, in that I might still have faced a three-way choice involving CIDER, EIDER and HIDER, assuming I eventually spotted the latter two. Worst still, I might have played CIDER on the fourth then the other two after that and scored a six.
None of that happened, thankfully. Instead, the D in WIDER turned green, meaning it could now only be RUDER or UDDER. A five was the worst I’d score, but I guessed correctly with UDDER and managed a four. As it turned out, RUDER had also been a previous answer, so that four was never really in doubt – and I also beat WordleBot, which is always fun.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than three 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 #1320, Wednesday 29 January: UDDER
- Wordle #1319, Tuesday 28 January: FEVER
- Wordle #1318, Monday 27 January: SHUNT
- Wordle #1317, Sunday 26 January: SUNNY
- Wordle #1316, Saturday 25 January: CRISP
- Wordle #1315, Friday 24 January: CREPE
- Wordle #1314, Thursday 23 January: UPPER
- Wordle #1313, Wedneday 22 January: REACH
- Wordle #1312, Tuesday 21 January: ICING
- Wordle #1311, Monday 20 January: SQUID
- Wordle #1310, Sunday 19 January: ROWER
- Wordle #1309, Saturday 18 January: SILLY
- Wordle #1308, Friday 17 January: PROSE
- Wordle #1307, Thursday 16 January: FLINT
- Wordle #1306, Wednesday 15 January: KNACK
- Wordle #1305, Tuesday 14 January: FANCY
- Wordle #1304, Monday 13 January: CLOAK
- Wordle #1303, Sunday 12 January: TOTAL
- Wordle #1302, Saturday 11 January: DINGY
- Wordle #1301, Friday 10 January: CRAWL
- Wordle #1300, Thursday 9 January: WAFER
- Wordle #1299, Wednesday 8 January: DRAFT
- Wordle #1298, Tuesday 7 January: ATLAS
- Wordle #1297, Monday 6 January: SPRIG
- Wordle #1296, Sunday 5 January: CYBER
- Wordle #1295, Saturday 4 January: RELAX
- Wordle #1294, Friday 3 January: CHEAP
- Wordle #1293, Thursday 2 January: CHOSE
- Wordle #1292, Wednesday 1 January: NERVE
- Wordle #1291, Tuesday 31 December: LEMUR
- Wordle #1290, Monday 30 December: STARE
- Wordle #1289, Sunday 29 December: MAMBO
- Wordle #1288, Saturday 28 December: DECRY
- Wordle #1287, Friday 27 December: GRAIN
- Wordle #1286, Thursday 26 December: AFFIX
- Wordle #1285, Wednesday 25 December: SHARE
- Wordle #1284, Tuesday 24 December: EAGLE
- Wordle #1283, Monday 23 December: SAUNA
- Wordle #1282, Sunday 22 December: BRAWN
- Wordle #1281, Saturday 21 December: BLADE
- Wordle #1280, Friday 20 December: FLASH
- Wordle #1279, Thursday 19 December: STRAY
- Wordle #1278, Wednesday 18 December: HEFTY
- Wordle #1277, Tuesday 17 December: SCOWL
- Wordle #1276, Monday 16 December: BOAST
- Wordle #1275, Sunday 15 December: FUNKY
- Wordle #1274, Saturday 14 December: DROOL
- Wordle #1273, Friday 13 December: BOXER
- Wordle #1272, Thursday 12 December: VYING
- Wordle #1271, Wednesday 11 December: PLUMB
- Wordle #1270, Tuesday 10 December: PATIO
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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