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 #1178) – 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 #1178) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is D.
D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.
Wordle hints (game #1178) – 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 #1178) – 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 #1178) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1178.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a payment taken from an account.
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 #1178)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: LEAST, TRICE (18 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: PUTTY (316)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1178) is… DEBIT.
Now here’s a word I’m unfortunately all too familiar with. Not that regularly seeing it in my banking app helped me solve it quickly today, however; I needed four guesses to find it, meaning I was just over the current average score of 3.9.
I was beset by bad luck thoughout. To begin with, my randomly chosen start word, PUTTY, left me with a sizeable pool of 316 possible solutions. Admittedly, WordleBot managed to bag a three despite CRANE, its preferred starter, leaving 273 options – but that was thanks to its second attempt being SPLIT, which cut the shortlist to only two.
In contrast, my follow-up was STARE, and that left 33. On this occasion, the ‘bot awarded me a luck score of only 5 – out of 99! I’m not entirely sure how it calculates these things, but it told me that the expected number of words remaining would be 12, so it was definitely an underperformer.
My third guess wasn’t much better: ELECT was a “wonderful choice”, but this time my luck score was 9/99 and I still had five words to choose from.
Up until this point I hadn’t actually made a shortlist, because I could see there were too many to make that worthwhile. But I did that now, and came up with DEBIT, BEFIT, BEGOT and FEINT. The fifth, WordleBot told me afterwards, was BIDET.
The good news was that this was one of those situations where any of the remaining words would have ruled out all of the others, so I didn’t need to play a narrowing-down answer and end up with a 5/6. Instead, I was free to guess my favorite of them and possibly score a four. And if it were wrong, I’d still get a five anyway.
Which to choose? Well, I couldn’t recall any being past Wordle answers, so decided to go with DEBIT purely because it seemed like the most common of them. And finally I enjoyed some good fortune, with all five letters turning green and giving me my four.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1177)
In a different time zone where it’s still Sunday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1177, 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 D.
D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.
- There were no 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 N.
N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it’s the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1177.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is tense and haggard.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1177)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CRANE (7 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SWEAR (12)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1177) was… DRAWN.
I’m not entirely sure how I contrived to score a four today, given that my start word left only 12 possible answers. Then again, others seem to be struggling a little to solve DRAWN too, and it currently has an average of 4.0, which is slightly above the mean for the game.
That’s probably because – like me – they may have found it hard to narrow down a bunch of very similarly spelled words. In my case, for instance, I had to pick between BRAWL, CRAWL, TRAWL, DRAWL, BRAWN, PRAWN and DRAWN. Other Wordlers today played the likes of DRAIN, TRAIN and DRANK in fairly large numbers, too.
WordleBot didn’t appear to have the same problem. CRANE, officially the best of all start words (according to the ‘bot at least), left only seven possible solutions, and it managed to eliminate the wrong ones in just a couple more guesses for a below-par 3/6.
I possibly should have done the same, but after my randomly chosen opener SWEAR reduced the answer pool to those dozen options, my second guess, WRATH, proved unlucky. Yes, it gave me two green letters – but it only cut my possibles list in half, leaving me a little too much work to do.
The six words I had to choose between were easy to identify: BRAWL, CRAWL, DRAWL, BRAWN, DRAWN and PRAWN. I needed a word that would rule out all five wrong answers, and got it in the form of BLEED. This was guaranteed to give me the solution, and indeed it did, pointing the way to DRAWN 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 #1177, Sunday 8 September: DRAWN
- Wordle #1176, Saturday 7 September: OWNER
- Wordle #1175, Friday 6 September: RERUN
- Wordle #1174, Thursday 5 September: WIDEN
- Wordle #1173, Wednesday 4 September: STERN
- Wordle #1172, Tuesday 3 September: FAINT
- Wordle #1171, Monday 2 September: CAMEL
- Wordle #1170, Sunday 1 September: MUSHY
- Wordle #1169, Saturday 31 August: SPOUT
- Wordle #1168, Friday 30 August: KNAVE
- Wordle #1167, Thursday 29 August: FLUNK
- Wordle #1166, Wednesday 28 August: LITHE
- Wordle #1165, Tuesday 27 August: CROWN
- Wordle #1164, Monday 26 August: STAKE
- Wordle #1163, Sunday 25 August: SKATE
- Wordle #1162, Saturday 24 August: FILET
- Wordle #1161, Friday 23 August: LEECH
- Wordle #1160, Thursday 22 August: BRUTE
- Wordle #1159, Wednesday 21 August: MULCH
- Wordle #1158, Tuesday 20 August: DELAY
- Wordle #1157, Monday 19 August: METER
- Wordle #1156, Sunday 18 August: LANKY
- Wordle #1155, Saturday 17 August: STORM
- Wordle #1154, Friday 16 August: BRACE
- Wordle #1153, Thursday 15 August: ACORN
- Wordle #1152, Wednesday 14 August: SHORE
- Wordle #1151, Tuesday 13 August: NEIGH
- Wordle #1150, Monday 12 August: SKIFF
- Wordle #1149, Sunday 11 August: SCONE
- Wordle #1148, Saturday 10 August: MEDIC
- Wordle #1147, Friday 9 August: OUNCE
- Wordle #1146, Thursday 8 August: SAUCY
- Wordle #1145, Wednesday 7 August: MACAW
- Wordle #1144, Tuesday 6 August: ANVIL
- Wordle #1143, Monday 5 August: ENSUE
- Wordle #1142, Sunday 4 August: LOWER
- Wordle #1141, Saturday 3 August: SCALE
- Wordle #1140, Friday 2 August: FLAKE
- Wordle #1139, Thursday 1 August: CHALK
- Wordle #1138, Wednesday 31 July: PENNE
- Wordle #1137, Tuesday 30 July: FERAL
- Wordle #1136, Monday 29 July: SUPER
- Wordle #1135, Sunday 28 July: SMOCK
- Wordle #1134, Saturday 27 July: JUICE
- Wordle #1133, Friday 26 July: AWASH
- Wordle #1132, Thursday 25 July: PORCH
- Wordle #1131, Wednesday 24 July: FORTE
- Wordle #1130, Tuesday 23 July: PRONG
- Wordle #1129, Monday 22 July: CADET
- Wordle #1128, Sunday 21 July: SPECK
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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