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 #1201) – 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 #1201) – 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 #1201) – 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 #1201) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is L.
L is a really common letter to find at the end of a Wordle. There are 155 games that finish with an L, and it ranks as the fifth most likely letter there.
Wordle hints (game #1201) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1201.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a hard outer covering.
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 #1201)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 5
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: STALE (5 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: LEANT (113)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1201) is… SHELL.
Another day, another relatively difficult Wordle with a repeated letter in it. Today it’s the turn of L, which is the third most likely to be repeated, behind E and O. As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, there are 71 words that contain more than one L – a lot more than the number that contain two Ms as seen in yesterday’s MODEM (15).
L is also one of the most common ending letters, fifth behind E, Y, T and R, which may have brought down the average a little; it currently stands at 4.0, below where I’d have expected it to be and a long way down on MODEM (4.3) or RIDER (4.6). Then again, it starts with S, the most common opening letter, and together with H that forms part of a combination that is second only to ST in terms of frequency.
The fact that I only scored a 5/6 is therefore slightly disappointing. That was mostly down to poor luck, though; I did make a mistake, but it didn’t have a big impact on the game.
I opened with LEANT, chosen at random, and that left 113 options. There were some good results out there for people whose start word began with an S – for instance SLATE left eight answers and STALE only five. STARE, which is the third most popular opening word, left 29 – not terrible by any means.
With plenty of words to choose from I focused on playing common letters rather than attempting to solve it, and went with SCALE. But I messed up here, including A even though it had been ruled out on the first guess. This didn’t harm my game too much – I still cut the possible answers list down to five – but that was more due to good fortune, as my expected number of solutions, according to WordleBot, was 29.
I found all five words easily enough: SPELL, SWELL, SMELL, SHELL and SHELF. The problem was that I couldn’t identify a single word that would rule out four incorrect answers. The best I could do was WHOMP – a word which would guarantee me the solution unless it was either SHELL or SHELF. And what happened? You guessed it.
So, I was left with a 50/50, which was slightly unlucky, then guessed SHELF next, and that was unlucky too. To have only five options left on the third guess but still end up scoring a 5/6 was frustrating, to say the least – but I won’t be the only one to struggle today.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1200)
In a different time zone where it’s still Tuesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1200, 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 M.
M is a middling letter when it comes to starting a word. It sits 10th in the rankings, with 107 occurrences in the 2,309 answers.
- 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 M.
M is a middling ending letter: it ranks 13th in this regard, and only completes 42 Wordle answers overall.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1200.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a connectivity device.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1200)
- NYT average score: 4.3
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: TRADE (151 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: CHIRP (829)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1200) was… MODEM.
M is not a particularly likely letter to be repeated in Wordle. I’ve crunched the numbers for every game (well, all 2,309 of the original answers, at least) and recorded the results here in my analysis of every Wordle answer. And as that shows, there are only 15 games in which it appears more than once. That’s a mere 0.65% of all games – so it’s not exactly something you’d play for.
It’s even more unlikely that you’d get those two Ms at the start and end of a solution – there are only four such words among those 2,309 answers. The good news is that MODEM is the third of them, so there’s only one more to follow. The others? Well, since you asked, they were MAXIM (game #50) and MADAM (#387). So there’s one more to come, and I have no idea what that is. But I’m not looking forward to it!
For those reasons, MODEM is a difficult Wordle answer – albeit not as hard as some. It has an average score of 4.3, which is way above the norm for the game, but still below Sunday’s RIDER, which was at 4.6.
To counter the problems brought by those Ms, there’s the fact that the other three letters are all pretty common, and that it’s a reasonably well known word. And fortunately you don’t need to know how a MODEM actually works, merely how to spell it…
Start words certainly didn’t help much. The best of WordleBot’s top 20 was TRADE, but that left 151 options, and my CHIRP left a massive 829. I played it safe and went with SLATE on my second guess, but though WordleBot said this was exactly what it would have played too, it still left a pool of 66 options.
To have this many words left after the second guess is unusual for me, but I had a plan in mind. In these situations, I look at the end of the word – because 82% of all words end in one of only nine letters. These are E, Y, T, R, L, H, N, D and K and I’d already ruled out five of those. The remainder were Y, N, D and K, with Y by far the most likely of them, so I decided to play MONEY.
This was a “solid guess” according to WordleBot, which preferred DEMON, but it worked very well in that it cut my answers to only one: MODEM. Or rather, that was my analysis; WordleBot said afterwards that there were four possibles, but the other three were MOVED, MOOED and MOWED, and what the ‘bot failed to factor in is that ED answers are very unlikely in this game.
So, I played MODEM with a high degree of confidence, and was pleased to see that I was right (and WordleBot wrong).
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 #1200, Tuesday 1 October: MODEM
- Wordle #1199, Monday 30 September: CLOUD
- Wordle #1198, Sunday 29 September: RIDER
- Wordle #1197, Saturday 28 September: BRAIN
- Wordle #1196, Friday 27 September: FAITH
- Wordle #1195, Thursday 26 September: THANK
- Wordle #1194, Wednesday 25 September: TORCH
- Wordle #1193, Tuesday 24 September: HANDY
- Wordle #1192, Monday 23 September: STEAM
- Wordle #1191, Sunday 22 September: TEACH
- Wordle #1190, Saturday 21 September: SEVEN
- 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
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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