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? TechRadar’s Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at our NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for our 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 #1267) – 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 #1267) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is H.
H is not a particularly common starting letter in Wordle: only 69 games begin with it, and it ranks in 15th place.
Wordle hints (game #1267) – 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 #1267) – 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 #1267) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1267.
- Today’s Wordle answer is up and down.
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 #1267)
- NYT average score: 4.2
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: STALE (49 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: FLUNG (361)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1267) is… HILLY.
I don’t know for sure how many -ILLY words there will be in Wordle, but I do know that the game accepts 10 as answers: BILLY, DILLY, FILLY, GILLY, HILLY, MILLY, TILLY, RILLY, SILLY and WILLY. To which the obvious reaction is: RILLY? Really? The others I can make a case for, even if some are clearly proper nouns only, but that one is simply baffling.
In fact, I suspect that no more than six of those are real solutions; probably BILLY, WILLY and DILLY, definitely SILLY, FILLY and HILLY. However, the sheer number of possibilities certainly foxed Wordlers today and led to this one having an average score of 4.2.
HILLY is arguably the most likely answer among them, but H is not the most common letter and so people may not have considered it until relatively late on. Judging by WordleBot’s report, other similar words – notably HIPPY – may also have led people astray.
And of course there’s that repeated L, too; this is common among repeated letters, but still rare in the context of Wordle as a whole, with 71 instance among the original 2,309 answers. What may have helped identify it, at least, is that LLY as a three-letter ending combo is the second most frequent, behind ING. When hunting words you will probably have stumbled across that format quite quickly, simply because there are so many of them.
I had to settle for a four today, but I’m pleased enough with that given my start word FLUNG, which left 361 words. STALE was chosen for the frequency of its letters but was unlucky and left 28. And then I had my lucky guess – I usually get one – in the form of CHILD. This gave me two more yellow letters to join my green L and left only the one possible answer. And with the H being among those yellows, I didn’t have to worry about it maybe being FILLY, SILLY or indeed RILLY (in the very unlikely event that the latter is a real answer).
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1266)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1266, 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 #1266.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is to give a push.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1266)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SNARE (31 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: PLEAD (364)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1266) was… SHOVE.
Believe it or not, I have never cheated at Wordle. Oh, I’ve been tempted; after all, I have every answer in the original 2,309-strong word list saved on a giant spreadsheet, and it would be easy to cross-reference that with the 1,267-strong list of answers so far in order to easily see which words were still possible, and have an advantage in solving Wordle each day. But what would be the point in that? Better to lose heroically, or at least to struggle gamely towards a five or six as I have so often in recent weeks.
Yesterday, though, I can understand why people might think I had cheated. I almost think I must have, when I look at my game. But that’s the way luck works, isn’t it?
SHOVE is not a particularly difficult Wordle even without heapings of good fortune layered upon it. WordleBot says it has an average score of 3.9, which is right on the midway mark for the game as a whole, and it has that ultra-common consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel format. What’s more, it starts with an S and ends with an E, by far the most common starting and ending letters respectively. Meanwhile, the H is not in the top 10 letters by frequency, but when paired with S at the beginning of a word it forms half of the second-most common opening combination in the game.
The V, admittedly, is not anywhere near as likely to appear as the others, and that’s probably what lifts this above the likes of SHONE or SHORE, both of which were played by lots of people today, to make it a moderate answer rather than an easy one.
It’s not one where the popular start words helped that much, though STARE did cut the list to 32, but that didn’t impact my game at all. My random opener was PLEAD, which left a mighty 364 options, and though my second choice TONER was deemed by WordleBot to be a perfect guess with a skill score of 99, it still left a dozen possible answers.
And that’s where the luck came in. As with CRYPT a couple of days ago, I drew up a list of words then picked the one that seemed like a good narrowing-down option. I didn’t expect it to be right – but it was, on a 12-to-1 shot! I’m sure this won’t last, but I’ll take it for now.
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 #1266, Friday 6 December: SHOVE
- Wordle #1265, Thursday 5 December: ENDOW
- Wordle #1264, Wednesday 4 December: CRYPT
- Wordle #1263, Tuesday 3 December: SHAKY
- Wordle #1262, Monday 2 December: GUILE
- Wordle #1261, Sunday 1 December: MAUVE
- Wordle #1260, Saturday 30 November: DOGMA
- Wordle #1259, Friday 29 November: HIPPO
- Wordle #1258, Thursday 28 November: CHOCK
- Wordle #1257, Wednesday 27 November: SLANG
- Wordle #1256, Tuesday 26 November: WITCH
- Wordle #1255, Monday 25 November: BROWN
- Wordle #1254, Sunday 24 November: TWIST
- Wordle #1253, Saturday 23 November: JELLY
- Wordle #1252, Friday 22 November: PEARL
- Wordle #1251, Thursday 21 November: SPINE
- Wordle #1250, Wednesday 20 November: NICHE
- Wordle #1249, Tuesday 19 November: GOING
- Wordle #1248, Monday 18 November: FRAIL
- Wordle #1247, Sunday 17 November: TALLY
- Wordle #1246, Saturday 16 November: VISOR
- Wordle #1245, Friday 15 November: TACKY
- Wordle #1244, Thursday 14 November: UVULA
- Wordle #1243, Wednesday 13 November: PRIMP
- Wordle #1242, Tuesday 12 November: FLOWN
- Wordle #1241, Monday 11 November: STOIC
- Wordle #1240, Sunday 10 November: INNER
- Wordle #1239, Saturday 9 November: SWELL
- Wordle #1238, Friday 8 November: READY
- 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
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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