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 #1340) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has vowels in three 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 #1340) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is I.
I is only the 19th most common starting letter in Wordle, and just 34 of the original 2,309 answers begin with it.
Wordle hints (game #1340) – 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 #1340) – 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 #1340) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1340.
- Today’s Wordle answer is not mainstream.
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 #1340)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- My start word performance: LOBBY (1,156 remaining answers)
- WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (24)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1340) is… INDIE.
Welcome, dear readers, to the latest edition of ‘The NYT just added a non-original answer into Wordle and it’s a difficult one!’
Yes, INDIE is one of those words, the ones that aren’t in the original 2,315-strong list compiled by the game’s creator Josh Wardle back in the days before anyone knew what a streak was, before WordleBot was born, before five-letter words even existed (I might be exaggerating on that last one).
It’s the 13th such extra word, joining a hall of fame that began with GUANO and SNAFU, then took in BALSA, KAZOO, LASER, PIOUS, BEAUT, MOMMY, PRIMP, UVULA, ATLAS, SQUID and FALSE.
And if you think these additions are ramping up, you’d be right: we had seven in the 550-odd games between GUANO and MOMMY, but the next six have come in fewer than 100 days. The NYT knows that Wordle is steadily running out of words and is seeking to keep it alive as long as it can.
Or it’s just random, I have no idea. Maybe few people other than me even care about this – you just want to play a word puzzle over breakfast or slouched on the couch late at night. That’s understandable.
Anyway, it interests me, not least because these extra words tend to be harder than most. INDIE is not the worst of them, with an average score of 4.1 at the time of writing; KAZOO, at 5.1, was the most difficult so far. It’s still relatively tough, though – particularly coming after the incredibly easy TRAIL yesterday (3.2, see below).
It contains three vowels, which typically makes for a simpler solving task, but then that’s offset by the fact that two of them are repeated. What’s more, ‘I’ is a very unlikely letter to be repeated – only 24 of the 2,000-plus original answers list have more than one of that letter (although INDIE is of course not on that original list).
It won’t have been too tricky if you began with AUDIO, admittedly, as that left only three possible solutions; ADIEU, at 20, was also pretty helpful. What did I play? Well, LOBBY. Yeah, that was not such a success! In fact, it left me with 1,156 options, a number which might as well be meaningless given that obviously I didn’t try to find any of them.
What I did do was work out which were the most common remaining letters, and with that in mind I played TRACE. I could have gone for CRANE or STARE, but they seemed a little too obvious. TRACE worked well enough – and was in fact what WordleBot said it would also have played. It was unlucky, though, and still left 46 words.
With a three now very unlikely, my goal was to find the right narrowing-down word. After much deliberation, I decided that should be SNIPE; no word could possibly guarantee me a four, but with a little luck it might give me the letters I needed.
And it did: the N turned green and the I yellow, and much to my surprise that left INDIE as the only possible solution. I played that next for my four.
How did you do today? Send me an email or let me know in the comments.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1339)
In a different time zone where it’s still Monday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1339, 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 T.
T is one of the most common starting letters in the game, beginning 149 of Wordle’s 2,309 answers. That gives it a ranking of fourth in the alphabet, behind only S, C and B.
- 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 #1339.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a track through the wilderness.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1339)
- NYT average score: 3.2 (revised)
- My score: 2
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- My start word performance: AVIAN (52 remaining answers)
- WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (23)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1339) was… TRAIL.
I wrote on Sunday about how difficult the past week’s worth of Wordles had been, but TRAIL is at the other end of the spectrum entirely. WordleBot says it has an average score of 3.3, which puts it within the top 25 easiest Wordles ever, and I scored a remarkable two on it. (Note – it’s since been revised to an even easier 3.2.)
Then again, it’s not that surprising that it’s proving easy to solve. A couple of the most popular start words, SLATE and TRAIN, each left only two possible solutions (as did LEAST), and almost all of the popular choices were below 20.
The reason for that is of course the fact that all five letters are ultra-common, and for the most part in very common positions. After all, TRAIL itself is a great start word – it’s only just outside of WordleBot’s top 20 – and that wouldn’t be the case if probability did not dictate that these letters will often appear in the game in these places.
TRAIL is a word I’ve played multiple times in order to narrow down my options on the second guess, so when AVIAN – my rather unusual opener – gave me yellow A and I, and left me with 53 possible answers, it was one of the first words I looked to.
Not the only one, though. I jotted down a couple of options – STAIN and STAIR were the other two – and could easily have picked one of those. But I always like to play R as early as possible, so that ruled out STAIN, and it’s more likely to appear in the second position than it is at the end, so that led me to TRAIL over STAIR.
I didn’t expect it to be the answer, of course – I merely hoped it would leave me only a couple of words and a good shot at scoring a three. But my luck was in yesterday, and I walked away with my second two inside a week.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than three 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 #1339, Monday 17 February: TRAIL
- Wordle #1338, Sunday 16 February: SUAVE
- Wordle #1337, Saturday 15 February: CROOK
- Wordle #1336, Friday 14 February: DITTY
- Wordle #1335, Thursday 13 February: RUMBA
- Wordle #1334, Wednesday 12 February: RAPID
- Wordle #1333, Tuesday 11 February: SCORE
- Wordle #1332, Monday 10 February: GOODY
- Wordle #1331, Sunday 9 February: BONUS
- Wordle #1330, Saturday 8 February: STEEP
- Wordle #1329, Friday 7 February: SWATH
- Wordle #1328, Thursday 6 February: PUPIL
- Wordle #1327, Wednesday 5 February: PEDAL
- Wordle #1326, Tuesday 4 February: TOOTH
- Wordle #1325, Monday 3 February: REVUE
- Wordle #1324, Sunday 2 February: CHORE
- Wordle #1323, Saturday 1 February: RIVET
- Wordle #1322, Friday 31 January: TOAST
- Wordle #1321, Thursday 30 January: FALSE
- Wordle #1320, Wednesday 29 January: UDDER
- Wordle #1319, Tuesday 28 January: FEVER
- Wordle #1318, Monday 27 January: SHUNT
- Wordle #1317, Sunday 26 January: SUNNY
- Wordle #1316, Saturday 25 January: CRISP
- Wordle #1315, Friday 24 January: CREPE
- Wordle #1314, Thursday 23 January: UPPER
- Wordle #1313, Wedneday 22 January: REACH
- Wordle #1312, Tuesday 21 January: ICING
- Wordle #1311, Monday 20 January: SQUID
- Wordle #1310, Sunday 19 January: ROWER
- Wordle #1309, Saturday 18 January: SILLY
- Wordle #1308, Friday 17 January: PROSE
- Wordle #1307, Thursday 16 January: FLINT
- Wordle #1306, Wednesday 15 January: KNACK
- Wordle #1305, Tuesday 14 January: FANCY
- Wordle #1304, Monday 13 January: CLOAK
- Wordle #1303, Sunday 12 January: TOTAL
- Wordle #1302, Saturday 11 January: DINGY
- 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
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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