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, which remains the best of all the main Wordle alternatives.
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 #1017) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has 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).
Wordle hints (game #1017) – 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 #1017) – 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 #1017) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is D.
D is a fairly common letter to end a Wordle answer: it’s the eighth most likely to be in that position in a solution.
Wordle hints (game #1017) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1017.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a large leaf.
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 #1017)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: TRADE (16 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: FALSE (32)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1017) is… FROND.
I’m not particularly skilled at guessing how difficult or otherwise a Wordle answer might be. Frankly, without WordleBot I’d be lost – half of the ones I think will be tough end up having a middling average when the ‘bot gives its verdict.
Today is a good example. Though I solved FROND in three guesses myself, I thought more people would find it difficult, so the fact that its average is only 3.9 and therefore lower than yesterday’s is a surprise to me.
It’s certainly not a massively common word – only the 16,432nd most frequently used according to WordAndPhraseInfo.com – and it has a certain similarity with several other words that are more likely to spring readily to mind. Looking at WordleBot’s analysis, ROUND, PROUD, WRONG and FRONT all appeared in large numbers among Wordlers’ guesses.
On the flip side, all of the letters are pretty common. Sure, F is only the 19th most likely letter overall, but as I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, it’s the seventh most likely to start an answer. And of course we had another one just two days ago, with FORCE.
Not many start words made major progress, with only CRANE (which left 17 remaining answers) and TRADE (16) below 40, at least as far as the top 20 were concerned.
My random opener today was FALSE, which left 32, so a decent result. And particularly useful was the fact that it gave me a green F at the start – I’d rather have a single green than a couple of yellows in most cases.
I didn’t find all 32 options, but I came up with enough to have a good idea of what my second guess should be. Obviously I’d want a couple of vowels in there, and it made sense to include some of the most common remaining consonants, too. Plus, I knew that one of them should definitely be R, because together with L that’s the only consonant that regularly follows an F at the start of a word, and the latter was already ruled out.
ROUND ticked all of my boxes, and WordleBot loved it too, calling it a “terrific choice”. It was also lucky, giving me two yellows and two greens – which means I now had a simple anagram to solve: F–ND with R and O to fit in. No, I didn’t struggle to decide upon FROND as the only answer now available…
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1016)
In a different time zone where it’s still Sunday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1016, too.
- Wordle yesterday had 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).
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was T.
T is one of the most common starting letters in the game, beginning 149 of Wordle’s 2,309 answers. That gives it a ranking of fourth in the alphabet, behind only S, C and B.
- 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 O.
O is a middling ending letter. It ranks 12th in this regard, and finishes 58 Wordle answers in total.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1016.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is not considered proper.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1016)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: TASER (14 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: TENET (60)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1016) was… TABOO.
It’s been a few days since we had a repeated letter in a Wordle and also a few days since we had a slightly more difficult game. Those two things may be related. Repeats are common in the game – as I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, 747 of Wordle’s original 2,309 solutions contain one (or more). But common or not, they make the game more complicated, so the fact that today’s average score is 4.0 is not a real surprise.
In fact, I’m surprised it’s not higher; not only does TABOO have that repeated letter O, but they end the word. This is a scenario that occurs in only in two Wordle answers in total, making it very unlikely indeed. Still, the other one – IGLOO – has already appeared (in game #702 last year), so at least you don’t need to worry about searching for one in the future.
It’s possible that the score will go up further during the course of the day, as more people play; it feels more like a 4.2 game to me than a 4.0. That said, there aren’t many similarly spelled words, so maybe that will be enough to keep it where it is.
I scored a par four myself, helped slightly by my random start word being TENET, which gave me that first letter. That left me with 60 possible answers, which was far from the best result today given that TRACE left 23 and TASER 14. But I was a little annoyed that my opener repeated both the T and E, which seemed a bit wasteful.
My second guess was a “great choice” according to WordleBot. I wanted to play two more vowels plus the R and L. Pairing them with S or C would have been my preferred option, but I couldn’t find a good word that used them all so went with GRAIL. The ‘bot pointed out afterwards that CORAL would have fit the bill perfectly, and would have given me the answer on the next go, so maybe I should have looked a little harder. As it was, GRAIL only gave me a yellow A, but that was enough to cut my shortlist to six.
I found all of them independently: TABBY, TAFFY, TACKY, TOPAZ, TODAY and TABOO. What I needed next was a word that would narrow them all down to the actual solution, and I found that in BACKY. Once the B turned yellow but the Y stayed gray I knew the answer had to be TABOO and played that next for my 4/6.
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 #1016, Sunday 31 March: TABOO
- Wordle #1015, Saturday 30 March: FORCE
- Wordle #1014, Friday 29 March: REALM
- Wordle #1013, Thursday 28 March: SPEAK
- Wordle #1012, Wednesday 27 March: STUNG
- Wordle #1011, Tuesday 26 March: MAYOR
- Wordle #1010, Monday 25 March: SALLY
- Wordle #1009, Sunday 24 March: TOWEL
- Wordle #1008, Saturday 23 March: RISEN
- Wordle #1007, Friday 22 March: DECAY
- Wordle #1006, Thursday 21 March: SHADE
- Wordle #1005, Wednesday 20 March: LINGO
- Wordle #1004, Tuesday 19 March: ABIDE
- Wordle #1003, Monday 18 March: SPELT
- Wordle #1002, Sunday 17 March: SNORT
- Wordle #1001, Saturday 16 March: TOXIN
- Wordle #1000, Friday 15 March: ERUPT
- Wordle #999, Thursday 14 March: SINCE
- Wordle #998, Wednesday 13 March: LOCAL
- Wordle #997, Tuesday 12 March: HEAVE
- Wordle #996, Monday 11 March: PESKY
- Wordle #995, Sunday 10 March: GRASP
- Wordle #994, Saturday 9 March: CHEER
- Wordle #993, Friday 8 March: EARLY
- Wordle #992, Thursday 7 March: CLONE
- Wordle #991, Wednesday 6 March: TEARY
- Wordle #990, Tuesday 5 March: HUNCH
- Wordle #989, Monday 4 March: FLAME
- Wordle #988, Sunday 3 March: STATE
- Wordle #987, Saturday 2 March: URBAN
- Wordle #986, Friday 1 March: FORTY
- Wordle #985, Thursday 29 February: IMAGE
- Wordle #984, Wednesday 28 February: DEVIL
- Wordle #983, Tuesday 27 February: SENSE
- Wordle #982, Monday 26 February: OFTEN
- Wordle #981, Sunday 25 February: SMITH
- Wordle #980, Saturday 24 February: PIPER
- Wordle #979, Friday 23 February: APART
- Wordle #978, Thursday 22 February: HEAVY
- Wordle #977, Wednesday 21 February: BUILD
- Wordle #976, Tuesday 20 February: MATCH
- Wordle #975, Monday 19 February: PRICE
- Wordle #974, Sunday 18 February: RIDGE
- Wordle #973, Saturday 17 February: PSALM
- Wordle #972, Friday 16 February: STASH
- Wordle #971, Thursday 15 February: ASCOT
- Wordle #970, Wednesday 14 February: TALON
- Wordle #969, Tuesday 13 February: SCRAM
- Wordle #968, Monday 12 February: PASTA
- Wordle #967, Sunday 11 February: NEVER
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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