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 #1207) – 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 #1207) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is J.
J is the least common letter overall in Wordle, but is only the fourth least likely starting letter. That’s because it begins 20 out of the 27 answers it appears in (Y, Z and X are all less common starting letters).
Wordle hints (game #1207) – 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 #1207) – 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 #1207) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1207.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a place where two things are attached or held together.
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 #1207)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SAINT (6 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: PENAL (123)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1207) is… JOINT.
I’ve said it before and I will definitely say it again: your second guess is far more important than your first. With the start word, it’s all about luck. Sure, you can skew the odds in your favor by playing a word that has a high probability of narrowing down the options, using something like CRANE or SLATE to give yourself the best chance. But whether it works or not on a given day is still largely a random process.
With the second guess, however, it’s all about skill. Well, okay, that’s not entirely true – luck of course plays a part once again. But your ability to shape the game is vastly increased. Whether your start word drew a blank or gave you three letters, it’ll be your second guess that determines whether you’re on course for a good score or not.
My start word today was PENAL – which wasn’t ideal given that the answer was ultimately revealed to be JOINT. Yes, it gave me a yellow N – but that was it, and it left me with 123 options. WordleBot, meanwhile, started with CRANE, which left only 68 – yet it needed four guesses to solve it, whereas I did it in three. And I suspect that was at least in part because my second guess did more to narrow down the options than the ‘bot’s did.
It’s a good job my second word worked so well, because JOINT is a difficult Wordle. It has an average score of 4.0 at the time of writing, which is above the standard score for the game, and begins with J. As regular readers (or anyone who looks at my analysis of every Wordle answer) will know, J is the least common letter in the entire game. It only appears 27 times in total, with 20 of those appearances coming at the start of a word as it is here.
And to add to the difficulty, JOINT also has a far more obvious near neighbor in the form of POINT. This has already been a solution – to game #214 back in January 2022 – but if you didn’t know that or look at a list of past Wordle answers, that won’t have helped you.
The fortunate thing for me was that when I followed PENAL with STING I ruled out all but two answers – including POINT, thanks to that P in my first word. But it was STING that did the hard work. I chose it partly because I knew that N is most likely to appear in position #4. It’s often followed there by G and T – so I put both of those in. S and I, meanwhile, were included simply because they are common.
And it worked, giving me two green letters, one yellow and leaving me a 50/50 between JOINT and THINK. And here I had some luck.
THINK has also been an answer already, game #882 in November 2023, but my memory is too poor to remember that on its own. However, I have the advantage of writing this column every day, and I distinctly recalled my final clue of “Today’s Wordle answer is what you need to do in a minute” because I was quite pleased with it (it doesn’t take much to impress me). So, I knew that it couldn’t be THINK either and was able to play JOINT for a nice 3/6. WordleBot, in contrast, was left to choose between POINT, JOINT and THINK – and needed a further attempt to solve it.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1206)
In a different time zone where it’s still Monday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1206, 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 F.
F is a very common starting letter in Wordle. It ranks seventh behind only S, C, B, T, P and A and overall there are 135 solutions that begin with this letter.
- 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 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 #1206.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is used in baking.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1206)
- NYT average score: 3.5 (revised)
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SANER (17 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: JELLY (225)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1206) was… FLOUR.
Wordle answers without A or E are reasonably uncommon; of the 1,207 games so far, only 336 have been without both. And, given that a far greater number of the most popular start words tend to include both letters, that makes for slightly higher averages when they’re not there. There’s not much in it, but among the games I have a score for, the average is 3.99 without A and E, versus 3.95 for all answers.
Why do I mention this? Because at the time of writing FLOUR had an average of 3.7 (note: revised to 3.5). This is, obviously, on the low side – particularly given that it doesn’t contain either of those two most common letters. So what gives? Well, my hunch is that it’s due to that OU combination in the center. If you know there’s no A or E – as anyone playing CRANE, SLATE, STARE etc will have done – then it’s a fairly natural next step to include them. And indeed, lots of Wordlers today followed up with one of ROUND, CLOUD or PROUD. Any of those will have given you three letters to work with, and in the case of CLOUD they’ll have all been green. Job (half) done.
As it happens, I didn’t include either in my first or second go, but by virtue of ruling out lots of letters and ruling in R and L, I was still able to score a three.
My random opener was JELLY, which is not a particularly helpful choice given the presence of a) the least common letter in the game, J, and b) a double L. That left me with 225 possible solutions, and a lot of work to do.
Matters improved on my second guess. I followed up with TRAIL and that added an R into the mix and reduced my options to five. I found them all, too: FLOUR, FLOOR, BLURB, SLURP and LURCH. But what I didn’t know at the time was that these were the only five left. If I had known that, I might have played a word guaranteed to give me the answer in four guesses; WordleBot suggested BLURB, but SLURP would have worked too. But as it was, I simply wanted to see if either O or U (or both) were included, and FLOUR was the only word that would do that.
So, I played FLOUR as a narrowing-down word, and was surprised – and pleased – when all five letters turned green. Who needs A or E anyway?
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 #1206, Monday 7 October: FLOUR
- Wordle #1205, Sunday 6 October: LAGER
- Wordle #1204, Saturday 5 October: MINER
- Wordle #1203, Friday 4 October: TITLE
- Wordle #1202, Thursday 3 October: WAGON
- Wordle #1201, Wednesday 2 October: SHELL
- 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
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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