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 #1281) – 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 #1281) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and C.
Wordle hints (game #1281) – 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 #1281) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1281) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1281.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a sharp edge.
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 #1281)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: TRADE (6 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: THICK (1,036)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1281) is… BLADE.
Sometimes simply playing the odds is enough to beat Wordle. No need for agonizing, no need to work out dozens of possible combinations and draw up a shortlist of answers – just play common letters in their common positions.
Case in point: my game for BLADE today.
I didn’t do that right from the start, of course, because I begin each day with a random guess, rather than using one of the best Wordle start words. This can lead to some less than optimal openings, and that was very much the case here; THICK was not in itself a poor choice (skill score 80, according to WordleBot, which is the same as that for ADIEU), but it was incredibly unlucky. THICK failed to uncover a single letter, and left me with – wait for it – 1,036 possible answers.
The days on which I have more than 1,000 options to choose from are rare indeed, so I certainly didn’t expect to score a three from there. However, I simply turned to probability to help me out of this deep hole, and it obliged by offering me a hand up.
What’s the most common starting letter? As regular readers of this column will know, or indeed as I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, it’s S. The most common second letter? A. The most common third? I’ll come back to that. Fourth? That’s E. Fifth? That’s E too, with Y next in the list. But Y is not one of the top 10 most common letters overall, so I skipped that too in favor of R. That also had the benefit of giving me an ER ending, which is ultra-likely.
That just left the middle letter, and there were now only limited choices here: SAFER, SAVER or my eventual choice SANER, which included another top-10 letter in N. Simple.
WordleBot rated SANER as one of its eight top choices here, all of which had a skill score of 99. But it was again unlucky, giving me only the two vowels (both yellow) and leaving 37 options still.
No matter: I turned to probability again. The most common remaining starting letter was B. Most common remaining second letter was O, but I already had two vowels, so I skipped that and went with L, which was third. A would go in the middle, where it was most common, E at the end (ditto). That left BLA-E; the fourth letter should therefore be D, to make BLADE.
I wasn’t expecting to solve it at this stage, obviously; I’d done enough homework to know that it could also be GLADE or FLAME or BLAME or BLAZE or PEDAL or MEDAL or AMPLE or lots of other words. But it was a good choice to narrow down those possibles.
WordleBot said it was exactly what it would have played too – but more importantly, it turned all five letters green! A win from absolutely nowhere.
The average today is 3.9, and WordleBot itself only scored a four, so I’m delighted with this result, albeit it owed more to math than to brain power. Still, they all count.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1280)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1280, too.
- Wordle yesterday had 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).
- 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 H.
H is a regular visitor to the final spot in a Wordle word. It occurs 137 times at the end of a Wordle answer, making it the sixth most common letter there.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1280.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a sudden burst of light.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1280)
- NYT average score: 3.7
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SLATE, STALE (7 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: ISSUE (168)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1280) was… FLASH.
I was convinced FLASH had been a past Wordle answer, but no. We’ve had FLUNG and FLOWN and FLOUR and FLUNK and FLAKE just in the past few months, FLASK and FLESH much further back, plus TRASH, SMASH, BRASH, GNASH and STASH at various points, but this is (obviously) the debut for FLASH.
It’s one of those words that sounds so similar to many others that unless you did what I didn’t, and consulted a list of answers, you were always going to be flailing around in the dark a little here. Unless you started with SLATE or STALE, that is, as both reduced the possible answers list to seven. But if you began with ISSUE as I did – unlikely, unless you mirror my game – you will have been left with a far more daunting 168 options.
That was too many for me to solve below the average today, which currently stands at 3.7; it’s actually the easiest game we’ve had for 10 days, albeit the joint holder of that title with BOAST.
I possibly should have scored a three, after my second guess CLASP performed wonders in cutting those 168 words to a trio of BLAST, FLASK and FLASH. The mistake I made was to play SHUTS next; yes, this was guaranteed to give me the answer in four, but it definitely couldn’t be correct. And yes, that’s a strategy I regularly employ, but it wasn’t needed here because FLASH and FLASK would both also have narrowed down the options, but while also giving me a chance of a solve.
I fell victim to my own cautious nature, frankly. I wasn’t certain I had found all of the possible solutions, so played a narrowing-down word to be sure. But if I’d have gone with my instinct and played FLASH, I’d have solved it in three. A silly mistake on an easy-ish day.
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 #1280, Friday 20 December: FLASH
- Wordle #1279, Thursday 19 December: STRAY
- Wordle #1278, Wednesday 18 December: HEFTY
- Wordle #1277, Tuesday 17 December: SCOWL
- Wordle #1276, Monday 16 December: BOAST
- Wordle #1275, Sunday 15 December: FUNKY
- Wordle #1274, Saturday 14 December: DROOL
- Wordle #1273, Friday 13 December: BOXER
- Wordle #1272, Thursday 12 December: VYING
- Wordle #1271, Wednesday 11 December: PLUMB
- Wordle #1270, Tuesday 10 December: PATIO
- Wordle #1269, Monday 9 December: FLUNG
- Wordle #1268, Sunday 8 December: HYENA
- Wordle #1267, Saturday 7 December: HILLY
- 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
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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