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, which remains the best of all the main Wordle alternatives.
SPOILER WARNING: Today’s Wordle answer and hints are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.
Marc is TechRadar’s UK Editor in Chief and has been playing Wordle for more than two years. He’s authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar and its sister site Tom’s Guide, including a detailed analysis of the most common letters in every position. His Wordle streak has reached the 500 mark (and is now in the 700s) and he’ll be inconsolable if he loses it. Yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Wordle hints (game #952) – 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 #952) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #952) – 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 #952) – 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 #952) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #952.
- Today’s Wordle answer is an animal or treacherous person.
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 #952)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #952) is… SNAKE.
After a brief foray into slightly more difficult territory for yesterday’s ALOOF we’re firmly back on safe ground with SNAKE. It starts with the most common starting letter, ends with the most common ending letter, has the most common middle letter in the center, and has a comfortable average score of 3.7.
It does, however, present a certain amount of peril in terms of its format, which is one that’s found in many, many words. SNA-E can also lead to SNARE, S-AKE can also be SHAKE, SLAKE, STAKE and (possibly) SPAKE, and there’s also SNAKY if you change the E. If you change two letters things get far worse: SCALE and SHARE and STAVE and SLATE and SPACE and on and on.
With that in mind, I suspect today’s answer will be something of an opinion splitter, with lots of 2/6s and 3/6s but also plenty of 5s and even 6s. Much will probably depend on your choice of the best Wordle starting words, or – if you don’t use one – on how lucky you were.
My random opener was EXTOL, which was spectacularly unlucky, leaving me with a monumental 602 options to pick from. But at the other end of the scale, CRANE left only two and SNARE just one. Lots of other popular choices were in the teens at worst.
The fact that I still got home in three guesses was entirely down to my second guess, which was close to my finest ever moment as far as my predictive powers go. All I knew at this stage was that the answer contained an E somewhere other than at the start, that there was no X (well duh!) and that it didn’t contain a T, O or L.
Chances are the E would go at the end. There would probably be at least one more vowel, and that would be either A or I, rather than U. R, S and N were the three most common consonants not yet played, so I threw them into the mix too and decided to play SNARE.
And what a choice that was! Those 602 possible solutions were cut down not just to 10, or five, or even two, but to a single, solitary, all-on-its-own one: SNAKE. Thank you very much, Wordle gods.
Even I couldn’t miss an easy opportunity like this, so I played SNAKE next for a rollercoaster 3/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #951)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #951, too.
- Wordle yesterday had 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).
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was A.
A is a reasonably common starting letter in Wordle: 140 games begin with this letter. It ranks 6th among starting letters, behind S, C, B, T and P.
- 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 F.
F is not a particularly common ending letter in Wordle. It only ranks 17th in this regard, and a mere 26 of the 2,000-plus original Wordle answers end in this letter.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #951.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is emotionally distant.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #951)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #951) was… ALOOF.
Finally! After 14 straight games of Wordle mundanity, we have a relatively difficult puzzle that should give some of you some problems. I say it should, because I solved it in 2/6 thanks to a monumentally lucky first guess. Others among you will not be so fortunate.
ALOOF has that staple of the difficult Wordle, a repeated letter. It also has a rare F as an ending letter. You wouldn’t necessarily think of F as an uncommon letter, but it is – it ranks 19th overall, and 17th when used at the end of a word. In fact, there are only 26 Wordles that have one there, of which the previous example was BRIEF. Those of you with good memories – or even average ones – will recall that word as the answer to Wordle #936 a couple of weeks ago. It had an average score of 4.2 and lo and behold so does today’s.
Forget about most of the best Wordle starting words making your task much easier here, because only two of the top 20 – SLATE and PLATE – reduced the number of remaining answers to below 20. Both left 16, which is decent but hardly spectacular.
However, spectacular is exactly what my opening word was today. I’m choosing a different random word each day now, remember, and today my selection was FRAIL – a word which makes for a nice starter on any day, but which here left only two possible answers.
Those two were ALOOF and ALOFT, and strictly speaking I should have picked the latter, simply because it doesn’t have a repeated letter and I tend to avoid those. However, I didn’t know that I had only two possible answers, which changed my thinking. Instead, I found ALOOF and decided that it was one of probably half a dozen possibles, and that I’d play it to see where my three yellow letters might be. And wouldn’t you know it – I guessed correctly. All of which meant that I absolutely smashed WordleBot, which could only score a 5/6. Yes, today was a good day…
Wordle answers: The past 50
I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than a year 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 #951, Friday 26 January: ALOOF
- Wordle #950, Thursday 25 January: BLOCK
- Wordle #949, Wednesday 24 January: RELIC
- Wordle #948, Tuesday 23 January: STILL
- Wordle #947, Monday 22 January: TWEAK
- Wordle #946, Sunday 21 January: NORTH
- Wordle #945, Saturday 20 January: LARGE
- Wordle #944, Friday 19 January: THING
- Wordle #943, Thursday 18 January: STOLE
- Wordle #942, Wednesday 17 January: COURT
- Wordle #941, Tuesday 16 January: BLOND
- Wordle #940, Monday 15 January: LUNCH
- Wordle #939, Sunday 14 January: DOING
- Wordle #938, Saturday 13 January: HEARD
- Wordle #937, Friday 12 January: ROUTE
- Wordle #936, Thursday 11 January: BRIEF
- Wordle #935, Wednesday 10 January: THREW
- Wordle #934, Tuesday 9 January: LINER
- Wordle #933, Monday 8 January: FINAL
- Wordle #932, Sunday 7 January: STONY
- Wordle #931, Saturday 6 January: CABLE
- Wordle #930, Friday 5 January: LUNGE
- Wordle #929, Thursday 4 January: SCANT
- Wordle #928, Wednesday 3 January: TWIRL
- Wordle #927, Tuesday 2 January: AGING
- Wordle #926, Monday 1 January: MURAL
- Wordle #925, Sunday 31 December: SALTY
- Wordle #924, Saturday 30 December: THREE
- Wordle #923, Friday 29 December: CHILD
- Wordle #922, Thursday 28 December: LEARN
- Wordle #921, Wednesday 27 December: DAISY
- Wordle #920, Tuesday 26 December: PHONE
- Wordle #919, Monday 25 December: EVOKE
- Wordle #918, Sunday 24 December: GRACE
- Wordle #917, Saturday 23 December: SLOPE
- Wordle #916, Friday 22 December: TOUCH
- Wordle #915, Thursday 21 December: BUILT
- Wordle #914, Wednesday 20 December: SMALL
- Wordle #913, Tuesday 19 December: TABLE
- Wordle #912, Monday 18 December: FUNNY
- Wordle #911, Sunday 17 December: BACON
- Wordle #910, Saturday 16 December: GLOBE
- Wordle #909, Friday 15 December: TOPIC
- Wordle #908, Thursday 14 December: WOULD
- Wordle #907, Wednesday 13 December: SPENT
- Wordle #906, Tuesday 12 December: THESE
- Wordle #905, Monday 11 December: HOUSE
- Wordle #904, Sunday 10 December: CHAIN
- Wordle #903, Saturday 9 December: SHIFT
- Wordle #902, Friday 8 December: SHARP
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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