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 #1238) – 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 #1238) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is R.
R is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter. Despite ranking third overall in Wordle, it’s merely the 11th most likely to begin an answer.
Wordle hints (game #1238) – 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 #1238) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Wordle hints (game #1238) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1238.
- Today’s Wordle answer is prepared.
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 #1238)
- NYT average score: 3.4
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: TRADE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: GRAVY (7)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1238) is… READY.
You’d have to go back to the middle of last month for the last time we had a game with as low of an average as READY. WordleBot says it’s currently being solved in an average of 3.4 guesses, a score last achieved by GRANT, game #1215, on October 16. It really has been a tough few weeks for Wordle.
But not today. Anyone who started with STARE – which is around 5% of all players – will have been left with only three possible solutions, while CRANE, TRACE and CRATE all left nine and SLATE cut the pool to a dozen. My random opener, GRAVY, was another good one, leaving a mere seven. There were plenty of high scores to be had here.
That’s hardly surprising, given that READY contains the three most common letters in the game, plus the second most common ending letter. And it’s also just such an obvious word; the kind that people will play when they’re trying to narrow down the answers, not necessarily expecting it to be the solution, only to be pleasantly surprised. I suspect that happened to a few today.
With a green A, a green Y and a yellow R to play with after my first guess, it shouldn’t have been too hard for me to find the seven words still available. If the R went at the start, I had READY, while if it went in position #4 I could play SCARY, DIARY, WEARY or TEARY. But hang on – because that’s only five. Yes, I missed a couple: HOARY – which might be an answer – and CHARY, which I very much doubt is.
That could have come back to haunt me, because while my second guess WEIRD was guaranteed to narrow down my five words, it could have left a three-way split between SCARY and the two words I missed. But it didn’t; WEIRD gave me the green E and still-yellow R that confirmed READY as the answer, and I played it next for my first 3/6 in more than a week.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1237)
In a different time zone where it’s still Thursday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1237, 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 E.
We don’t get many Wordle answers that start with an E – though it’s the most common letter in the game, it’s only the 14th most likely to begin a solution.
- 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 T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1237.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a thing that’s happening (or has happened, or will happen).
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1237)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SAINT (9 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: FETCH (167)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1237) was… EVENT.
By rights EVENT should be a reasonably difficult Wordle, in that it contains both a repeated letter and a (relatively) uncommon letter. However, WordleBot says it currently has an average score of 3.9, putting it smack bang in the middle of the range for the game.
The reason why it’s not so bad as you might expect is twofold. Firstly, the repeated letter is an E – and this is not only the most common letter in the game but also (by a distance) the most likely to be repeated. And secondly, two of the other letters are also super-common, which will have increased the chance that they were played early on. V is the outlier, of course, but while it’s the fifth least likely letter to appear in Wordle, it’s not rare in the way that X, Z, Q and J are; there are still 152 of them among the game’s 2,309 original solutions.
From a probability point of view, then, it’s not a nightmare game. And it will have been even easier if you began with CRANE, because that left only 17 possible solutions. Unfortunately for me, my random opener FETCH left a rather bigger pool of 167 words, according to WordleBot.
I played it safe on my second go, adding three more common letters to my yellow E and T and going with SLATE. This was very unlucky, though, and still left 41 words. I’d have to use my brain after all today.
With R still unplayed, and with TR a very common opening combination (the equal seventh by frequency), I decided to go with that next. It made sense to put the E in position #4, because it appears there more often than anywhere else other than at the end. That would also guard against it being an ER word such as TONER or TIMER, because if the E turned green and the R yellow that was very likely to be the format.
TRIED was my weapon of choice, and this time my luck held – I didn’t uncover any more letters, but there was now only one possible solution. That might sound surprising given that I still had only two yellows, but there were only a limited number of ways those letters could now be arranged: ET—, E—-T and -TE–. I could only find one word that fit any of those patterns, so I played EVENT next and scored another 4/6. That’s my seventh in a row, which I’m pretty sure is a new record for me. Boring!
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 #1237, Thursday 7 November: EVENT
- Wordle #1236, Wednesday 6 November: TRULY
- Wordle #1235, Tuesday 5 November: OCTET
- Wordle #1234, Monday 4 November: VINYL
- Wordle #1233, Sunday 3 November: BLAZE
- Wordle #1232, Saturday 2 November: SNOOP
- Wordle #1231, Friday 1 November: SIXTH
- Wordle #1230, Thursday 31 October: WEIRD
- Wordle #1229, Wednesday 30 October: EASEL
- Wordle #1228, Tuesday 29 October: TUNIC
- Wordle #1227, Monday 28 October: BAWDY
- Wordle #1226, Sunday 27 October: SANDY
- Wordle #1225, Saturday 26 October: WREAK
- Wordle #1224, Friday 25 October: FROWN
- Wordle #1223, Thursday 24 October: BOSSY
- Wordle #1222, Wednesday 23 October: GOOFY
- Wordle #1221, Tuesday 22 October: SHOUT
- Wordle #1220, Monday 21 October: SPOON
- Wordle #1219, Sunday 20 October: DICEY
- Wordle #1218, Saturday 19 October: FIBER
- Wordle #1217, Friday 18 October: STINT
- Wordle #1216, Thursday 17 October: HALVE
- Wordle #1215, Wednesday 16 October: GRANT
- Wordle #1214, Tuesday 15 October: CORER
- Wordle #1213, Monday 14 October: GAMUT
- Wordle #1212, Sunday 13 October: PRONE
- Wordle #1211, Saturday 12 October: STAIN
- Wordle #1210, Friday 11 October: GUSTY
- Wordle #1209, Thursday 10 October: CARVE
- Wordle #1208, Wednesday 9 October: MOMMY
- Wordle #1207, Tuesday 8 October: JOINT
- 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
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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