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 #1127) – 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 #1127) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is S.
S is the most common starting letter in the game, featuring in 365 of Wordle‘s 2,309 answers. In fact, it’s almost twice as likely to begin an answer as the next most common starting letter, C.
Wordle hints (game #1127) – 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 #1127) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Wordle hints (game #1127) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1127.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a vertical opening or passage.
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 #1127)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: LEAST, STALE (4 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: ABBOT (68)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1127) is… SHAFT.
If yesterday’s puzzle was a complex, interesting and difficult one, then today’s is far more straightforward in every way. SHAFT has no major complications, is being solved in an average of 3.8 guesses and is not particularly noteworthy in any regard.
I shall try to find things to say, though. For instance, did you know that SH is the second most common of all starting combinations? I did – and it’s mentioned in my analysis of every Wordle answer. Or that A is the most common letter to be found in the middle of a solution? Again, it’s true, as is the fact that T is the third most common ending letter.
These factors combined to make it a rather easy one, and it was particularly simple if you began with one of the most popular of all start words, STARE. That left only five possible solutions, just behind LEAST and STALE (both four).
My word didn’t have an S in it, which would have helped, but ABBOT did have an A and better still it had a T at the end. That left 68 options for me, and I might have got home in two more guesses from there with a little more luck, but unfortunately it took me three more.
My second guess was SLAIN, which turned the A green and gave me my S too: I now had S-A-T to solve. WordleBot told me afterwards there were only three words that fit by now, and that’s the same as what I came up with: SHAFT, SMART and START. I went with SMART, because SHAFT could still have left me with a 50/50 chance, and START had a repeat in it; no, it wasn’t technically more unlikely at this stage – there was of course a 1/3 chance whichever one I went with – but I had to find some way to decide.
SMART wasn’t right, but it pointed the way to SHAFT and I scored a four.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1126)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1126, 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 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 #1126.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is to direct attention to.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1126)
- NYT average score: 4.7
- My score: 5
- WordleBot’s score: 5
- Best start word performance*: LEAST (97 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: VAUNT (718)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1126) was… REFER.
REFER is a member of a select group of Wordle answers, namely those that contain two repeated letters. As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, there are 38 of these among the game’s 2,309 original solutions, and REFER is the 19th. That’s particularly pleasing to me, because it means we’re halfway through that list as we approach the halfway stage of the game overall. Probability is working as it should do!
Most of these 19 have been difficult. I don’t have scores for the first few, MIMIC (game #48), BOOBY (#54), GAMMA (#93), CIVIC (#96) and VIVID (#254). But after that we have CACAO (#364, 4.5), MADAM (#387, 4.3), MOTTO (#403, 4.3), SALSA (#606, 4.2), KAYAK (#671, 4.4), COCOA (#689, 4.5), MAGMA (#791, 4.9), VERVE (#795, 5.1), ONION (#805, 3.9), QUEUE (#883, 4.1), SENSE (#983, 4.1), AMASS (#1,060, 4.2) and PAPAL (#1,075, 4.7).
As you can see, that’s seven games between 4 and 4.5, five above 4.5 and only one below 4. REFER fits neatly into that pattern, with a current average of 4.7 according to WordleBot.
On the plus side, both of those repeated letters are very common: E is the most likely letter to appear in the game and to be repeated, R is third in both regards. The F in the middle is a lot less common – there are only 25 instances of that overall – but that’s unlikely to have impacted the difficulty too much today.
One thing that will have done is the performance of the most popular start word choices. Only one of WordleBot’s top 20, LEAST, was below 100 – and that only at 97 – and many were close to or above 200. RAISE, which is outside of the top 20 but which is played by around 2% of Wordlers, did at least reduce the options to 33, so players who went with that may have had a chance of a three.
Few other people will have done. I scored a five, as did WordleBot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few failures today. I don’t think that was ever on the cards for me, but when VAUNT drew a blank and SLICE only gave me a yellow E, I did fear the worst.
That’s because a yellow E at the end always raises the specter of it being an ER answer. And that was soon proven to be the case; I played DOPER in order to confirm my fears, and both E and R turned green. Time to get to work.
I didn’t know how many answers were left, but found five: FEWER, FREER, REFER, EMBER and FRYER. These are the same five that WordleBot came up with, as it happens. I couldn’t recall whether any had been past Wordle answers, so guessed FEWER for no particular reason; it turns out it had, as had EMBER.
Inevitably it wasn’t the answer, then, but it did rule out all the other options and left me to play REFER next for my five.
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 #1126, Friday 19 July: REFER
- Wordle #1125, Thursday 18 July: NERDY
- Wordle #1124, Wednesday 17 July: QUITE
- Wordle #1123, Tuesday 16 July: DECOY
- Wordle #1122, Monday 15 July: SWOON
- Wordle #1121, Sunday 14 July: VIDEO
- Wordle #1120, Saturday 13 July: ENACT
- Wordle #1119, Friday 12 July: JIFFY
- Wordle #1118, Thursday 11 July: CAMEO
- Wordle #1117, Wednesday 10 July: GAUNT
- Wordle #1116, Tuesday 9 July: BLARE
- Wordle #1115, Monday 8 July: SHAPE
- Wordle #1114, Sunday 7 July: CANON
- Wordle #1113, Saturday 6 July: SCOFF
- Wordle #1112, Friday 5 July: CRUSH
- Wordle #1111, Thursday 4 July: DEBUT
- Wordle #1110, Wednesday 3 July: THIGH
- Wordle #1109, Tuesday 2 July: INLAY
- Wordle #1108, Monday 1 July: ADAGE
- Wordle #1107, Sunday 30 June: BUDDY
- Wordle #1106, Saturday 29 June: ZEBRA
- Wordle #1105, Friday 28 June: DROVE
- Wordle #1104, Thursday 27 June: ORDER
- Wordle #1103, Wednesday 26 June: KNEAD
- Wordle #1102, Tuesday 25 June: SAVOR
- Wordle #1101, Monday 24 June: DOLLY
- Wordle #1100, Sunday 23 June: BUGLE
- Wordle #1099, Saturday 22 June: EDICT
- Wordle #1098, Friday 21 June: PAINT
- Wordle #1097, Thursday 20 June: SCENT
- Wordle #1096, Wednesday 19 June: TERSE
- Wordle #1095, Tuesday 18 June: COVER
- Wordle #1094, Monday 17 June: PRIOR
- Wordle #1093, Sunday 16 June: GRIND
- Wordle #1092, Saturday 15 June: PROUD
- Wordle #1091, Friday 14 June: VAULT
- Wordle #1090, Thursday 13 June: ANGST
- Wordle #1089, Wednesday 12 June: DETER
- Wordle #1088, Tuesday 11 June: SWUNG
- Wordle #1087, Monday 10 June: MANGA
- Wordle #1086, Sunday 9 June: CROWD
- Wordle #1085, Saturday 8 June: HENCE
- Wordle #1084, Friday 7 June: MELON
- Wordle #1083, Thursday 6 June: ETHER
- Wordle #1082, Wednesday 5 June: ORGAN
- Wordle #1081, Tuesday 4 June: GROOM
- Wordle #1080, Monday 3 June: STARK
- Wordle #1079, Sunday 2 June: BRAVO
- Wordle #1078, Saturday 1 June: BASIN
- Wordle #1077, Friday 31 May: CHAOS
- Wordle #1076, Thursday 30 May: GUMMY
- Wordle #1075, Wednesday 29 May: PAPAL
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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