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 #1302) – 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 #1302) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is D.
D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.
Wordle hints (game #1302) – 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 #1302) – 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 #1302) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1302.
- Today’s Wordle answer is dirty or lacking in brightness.
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 #1302)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SANER (51 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: ARENA (107)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1302) is… DINGY.
I’ve spent a fair bit of my life in DINGY places. Student houses and then shared apartments in my younger days, plus countless concert venues where DINGY is not only fitting but a compliment; it all adds to the aesthetic, right? Did that help me solve today’s Wordle? Almost certainly not – which is a shame, because I had to settle for yet another four today.
Admittedly, four is also what WordleBot scored, and what many other people ended up with too, based on its average of 4.1. It’s one of those answers which has no really uncommon letters but few very common ones either. N is in the top 10, at number nine, and I is a couple of places ahead of it – but neither is anywhere near as likely as A, E, R or T.
Those are the letters that make up the majority of the best Wordle start words, so inevitably the results today were less than stellar. CRANE, WordleBot’s favorite, left 81, and even the best of its top 20 – SANER – left 51. My ARENA was double that, at 107.
I had to contend with yet another repeated letter in my opener; I’m beginning to think I should rework my random word generator to exclude those options. Then again, it worked rather well with LLAMA yesterday, so I suppose I should just take whatever fortune throws at me.
I didn’t play particularly well, going for PYLON second and earning an admonishment from the ‘bot. My theory was that with E and R ruled out, there was a good chance that either N, L or Y would end the answer given that they are all common there, and as it happened I was right – the Y turned yellow, which pretty much guaranteed that it would be placed there. But as the ‘bot pointed out, PINOT – which contains a second vowel – would have been more efficient.
That left me with 15 options, and I did at least get it right on the third guess. Or rather, I got it as right as I could; it was always unlikely that I’d get a 15-to-one shot, so I didn’t try, instead playing DIGIT.
This was designed to narrow down the likes of DINGY, DINKY, UNIFY, WINDY, MINTY and KINKY, but I was well aware it might still leave me in an UNKY trap; FUNKY, HUNKY and GUNKY were all possible, as was JUNKY. I didn’t have the last of those, but WordleBot thought it was a contender at least.
Fortunately, it wasn’t one of those. The first two letters turned green, the G turned yellow, and I was left with only DINGY as an option.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1301)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1301, 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 C.
C is a very common starting letter in Wordle – in fact, it’s the second most common of all, behind only S.
- 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 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.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1301.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a way of moving.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1301)
- NYT average score: 3.8 (revised)
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: PLACE (4 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: LLAMA (26)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1301) was… CRAWL.
A bad start word can be a good start word on the right day – you just need a bit of luck and the right follow-up.
Today, my random word generator dealt me LLAMA – a ridiculous word that only contains three distinct letters, of which one is the less-than-common M. This could have been a disaster; WordleBot said afterwards that it was a “distinctive” opening word, that “was played by less than 0.1% of players.” Leaving aside the fact that it should be “fewer than”, not “less than”, and that using both “played” and “players” in the same sentence is a bit clumsy, this was factually correct – but without telling the entire story. Yes, it was distinctive, but it was also not particularly good – only 67/99 for skill, on the ‘bot’s scale.
However, it proved a very, very lucky guess today. Not only did it give me a yellow L and A, but it ruled out the possibility of a repeated L (or indeed a repeated A). That fact would come in handy later on.
That cut my possibles list to 26, but other start words performed even better. For instance, CRANE and TRACE each left only seven words.
And here we get to the meat of today’s analysis, because even with only a few words left you may still have needed a couple more guesses to get the answer, because it’s a minor example of the too-many-answers problem.
There are only really four of them – CRAWL, TRAWL, DRAWL and BRAWL – but they were all played by plenty of people today as they hunted down the answer. It will have been a tough one on hard mode, for sure. On standard mode it’s not too bad, but its average of 3.9 indicates that it’s not easy either (note – revised down to 3.8, so maybe a little easier).
My second guess was good, but not quite good enough to give me a three. I played STILE, which cut my options down to four – but given that three of them were CRAWL, DRAWL and BRAWL, I wasn’t going to shoot for the answer on the next attempt.
No, I’d need to narrow them down, which I did with CROWD. This worked perfectly, giving me a green C, R and W, and meaning that I didn’t need to worry about the fact that I’d missed a fourth possibility, GNARL.
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 #1301, Friday 10 January: CRAWL
- Wordle #1300, Thursday 9 January: WAFER
- Wordle #1299, Wednesday 8 January: DRAFT
- Wordle #1298, Tuesday 7 January: ATLAS
- Wordle #1297, Monday 6 January: SPRIG
- Wordle #1296, Sunday 5 January: CYBER
- Wordle #1295, Saturday 4 January: RELAX
- Wordle #1294, Friday 3 January: CHEAP
- Wordle #1293, Thursday 2 January: CHOSE
- Wordle #1292, Wednesday 1 January: NERVE
- Wordle #1291, Tuesday 31 December: LEMUR
- Wordle #1290, Monday 30 December: STARE
- Wordle #1289, Sunday 29 December: MAMBO
- Wordle #1288, Saturday 28 December: DECRY
- Wordle #1287, Friday 27 December: GRAIN
- Wordle #1286, Thursday 26 December: AFFIX
- Wordle #1285, Wednesday 25 December: SHARE
- Wordle #1284, Tuesday 24 December: EAGLE
- Wordle #1283, Monday 23 December: SAUNA
- Wordle #1282, Sunday 22 December: BRAWN
- Wordle #1281, Saturday 21 December: BLADE
- 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
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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