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 #1190) – 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 #1190) – 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 #1190) – 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 #1190) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is N.
N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it’s the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.
Wordle hints (game #1190) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1190.
- Today’s Wordle answer is supposedly lucky.
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 #1190)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SANER (2 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: PURER (285)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1190) is… SEVEN.
There are an infinite number of, er, numbers – but only six could ever be Wordle answers (assuming I haven’t missed something). Three have already been answers: FIFTY (game #616), THREE (#924) and FORTY (#986), while EIGHT and SIXTY could be future solutions (but that’s speculation; I don’t know for a fact that they will be.) To that list we can add SEVEN, today’s answer.
SEVEN is likely to be one the easiest of those six answers. FIFTY had a very high average score of 4.5, while SEVEN is down at 3.9. FORTY was another at 3.9, but THREE was the easiest so far, at 3.7. As regards the other two, I suspect EIGHT will have a relatively high average due to its uncommon format of starting with two vowels and ending with GHT, while SIXTY contains an X – a letter which few people are likely to play early on.
Then again, SEVEN does have its own problems, in the form of a repeated E and a V in the middle; as my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, V is less common than all other letters except Z, Q, X and J. You will have had an easier time of it if you began with SLATE (37 remaining answers), STARE (29), SAINT (19), LEAST (18), SNARE (10) or SANER (2) – but not if, like me, you led with PURER.
This word was chosen at random, as my start words always are these days, and left 285 possible answers. Often I can considerably reduce a total in that range with a good follow-up, but not today. I went for ANGEL – which seemed a fair shot – but which still left 35 words and which WordleBot only rated 71 for skill. However, that doesn’t tell the whole tale, because around a third of those options were ED ending words, which generally don’t appear as answers.
I largely (but not entirely) discounted them from my thinking, and instead focused on words that ended in EN (TOKEN, WOKEN, WOVEN, WOMEN, OFTEN, DOZEN, SHEEN) or that had an NEY format (BONEY, MONEY). I also had NOSEY and SINEW.
With those answers in mind, I went for SYNOD next – but I maybe shouldn’t have. The D being included was partly a guard against it being an ED answer, even though that was very unlikely, and in hindsight I should have trusted my instinct and stuck to narrowing down the other words I had.
WordleBot agreed, rating it at 70 for skill – so even lower than my second guess. But despite that, it performed well enough, cutting my options to a pair, SEVEN and SHEEN.
There was no particular reason to favor one over the other, so I went with SEVEN… and was right. Turns out it is a lucky number, I guess.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1189)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1189, 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 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.
- 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 #1189.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a byproduct of burning.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1189)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: PARSE (31 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SLIDE (46)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1189) was… SMOKE.
You might look at SMOKE and think, ‘Ah, there’s a nice, easy Wordle.’ But you’d be wrong. WordleBot says it has an average score of 4.1, and both myself and the ‘bot ended up with a four today.
That’s because the S—E format is incredibly likely; the most common starting/ending format in the game, with 74 examples across the original 2,309 solutions. So while lots of people will have started the game with a good first guess that gave them two green letters, they’ll still have struggled to narrow down the options.
In my case, my start word was SLIDE, and that left 46 possibles. STARE was at 32, and SLATE at 36. Those shortlists are still relatively, er, short – but the problem is that the three letters that sit in-between were varied. Vowel-wise, all five could have featured, including a repeated E (for instance SCENE). And on the consonants front, the letters that go after S are W, T, P, L, H, M, N and C. For the fourth letter, there were even more options – for instance V (STOVE, SHOVE), K (SMOKE, STOKE), P (SLOPE, SNIPE), R (SNARE, SHORE) and so on and on and on.
Good narrowing-down words were therefore essential; anyone guessing blindly will have had a nightmare today. My approach was to play ACORN next, as it ticked off lots more common letters. This had the desired effect, and cut my list to six words – STOKE, SMOKE, SPOKE, STOVE, SHOVE and SMOTE.
And then it got difficult. I looked for ages and couldn’t find a word that would guarantee me a 4/6. WordleBot later told me that VOMIT and KEMPT would have worked. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of them and instead played SMITH. This was guaranteed to rule out all answers except for one pair, STOKE and STOVE; if the answer was either of those, I’d still have a 50/50.
Fortunately that didn’t happen: I played SMITH and it pointed the way to SMOKE as the only remaining solution.
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 #1189, Friday 20 September: SMOKE
- Wordle #1188, Thursday 19 September: PRESS
- Wordle #1187, Wednesday 18 September: FULLY
- Wordle #1186, Tuesday 17 September: BEAUT
- Wordle #1185, Monday 16 September: HONEY
- Wordle #1184, Sunday 15 September: RECUR
- Wordle #1183, Saturday 14 September: BROAD
- Wordle #1182, Friday 13 September: HARSH
- Wordle #1181, Thursday 12 September: BRASS
- 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
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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