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 #1181) – 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 #1181) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and C.
Wordle hints (game #1181) – clue #3 – repeated letters
Does today’s Wordle have any repeated letters?
• There are 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 #1181) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is S.
S is really not a common ending letter at all – mainly because Wordle generally doesn’t allow plurals. It’s the 15th most likely letter to appear at the end of an answer.
Wordle hints (game #1181) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1181.
- Today’s Wordle answer is an alloy.
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 #1181)
- NYT average score: 4.2
- My score: 5
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: STARE (6 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: ADMIN (480)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1181) is… BRASS.
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday’s AISLE (see below) had an ultra-low average score of 3.4 and I managed a 3/6 with no problems. Today, the average is 4.2 and I had to make do with a slightly nerve-jangling five.
There are no issues with the letters in use today; all five are common to some extent, with B the lowest ranked (18th) but also the third most likely to start an answer. R, A and S, meanwhile, are all top 10 letters. But of course that last letter was repeated, a factor which always makes Wordle harder to solve.
And then there’s the too-many-answers aspect: change that first letter and you could also have GRASS or CRASS, change the last and you could have BRASH, change two letters and you’d be picking from a wide pool including CRASH, GRASP and TRASH.
Difficult or not, I didn’t play very well. The frustrating thing for me was that I could easily have scored a four, but messed up my third guess and had to settle for a five.
Things started badly, with ADMIN leaving 480 possible answers. At the other end of the scale, STARE – which was my start word for a couple of years until January – left only six. Coincidentally, that word was my second guess, and it duly left me with six answers too: BRASS, GRASS, GRASP, CRASH, BRASH and BRASS.
So how did I turn that decent situation into something of a disaster? I failed to do my due diligence and didn’t find all six of those words. If I had, I could have played BOGUS (WordleBot’s choice), which would have guaranteed me a four. But I only came up with CRASH, BRASH, BRASS and GRASS, and decided that it was worth a shot at a three rather than narrowing it down further.
I went with CRASH, knowing that if it was wrong I might still face a 50/50, only to realize afterwards that actually I had a one-in-three shot: GRASS, GRASP and BRASS were all still options. That lengthened the odds and inevitably my next guess was also wrong. I was left to play BRASS for a 5/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1180)
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1180, 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 A.
A is a reasonably common starting letter in Wordle: 140 games begin with this letter. It ranks 6th among starting letters, behind S, C, B, T and P.
- 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 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.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1180.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a passage between seats.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1180)
- NYT average score: 3.4
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: STALE, SLICE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: SLINK (5)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1180) was… AISLE.
This is a very easy Wordle, with a low, low, low score of 3.4 at the time of writing. That’s a full half-guess below the overall average for Wordle of 3.9, and nearly a whole guess below Tuesday’s REBEL.
Why so simple? Well, partly it’s down to the fact that it has three vowels – something which usually makes a Wordle easier – and partly it’s down to start word performance.
Those two things are linked here, because the most popular start word of them all, ADIEU, left only three possible solutions. And as you can see, ADIEU contains four vowels, three of which are in AISLE. And nor was it the only success today – SLATE, another very popular choice, also left three, while RAISE and ARISE, two other very common starters, both left only one.
I was only a little behind that today, because for once I got lucky with my random opener: SLINK cut my answers list to only five.
Or at least that’s what WordleBot told me afterwards. In my head, I had only two: BASIL and AISLE. The others, according to the ‘bot, were POLIS (really?), LEXIS (really really?) and ISLET (OK, yeah, I probably should have spotted this).
Anyway, with a 50/50 as far as I was concerned, it made sense for me to just pick one rather than trying to further narrow things down. And in the end I went for BASIL, mainly because I really, really like BASIL. I mean come on, pesto is amazing.
So I played BASIL for very sensible reasons, and though it was wrong it cut my answers list to only one (even if in my head I only ever had one more option anyway). I played AISLE without worrying about it, and scored my easy 3/6.
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 #1180, Wednesday 11 September: AISLE
- Wordle #1179, Tuesday 10 September: REBEL
- Wordle #1178, Monday 9 September: DEBIT
- 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
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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