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 #958) – 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 #958) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is C.
C is a very common starting letter in Wordle – in fact, it’s the second most common of all, behind only S.
Wordle hints (game #958) – 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 #958) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Wordle hints (game #958) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #958.
- Today’s Wordle answer is split or divided.
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 #958)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #958) is… CLEFT.
This was something of a rollercoaster Wordle for me, with some bad luck followed by some good luck followed by some really good luck. But in truth it’s not a very tough Wordle, and most people will probably have a more straightforward time of it.
WordleBot, the NYT’s AI helper tool, says people are solving it in 3.6 guesses, which is identical to the score for yesterday’s puzzle (see below). There are no particular complications to it; arguably the most difficult element is the word itself, which is not in particularly wide usage compared to other recent solutions. To illustrate that, I took a look at the fascinating WordAndPhraseInfo site, which records the commonality of words based on their frequency within books, magazines, websites and so on. CLEFT is apparently only the 22,083rd most common word in English, whereas ALIVE (1,537), BULKY (9,706) and even EXPEL (7,081) are all used far more often. That said, CLEFT is still more common than LEGGY (26,448), which backs up my assertion a few days ago that it was an odd choice of answer.
The F aside, it contains only very common letters, and that usually means that the best Wordle starting words will cut down the options considerably. Indeed, TRACE – WordleBot’s favorite – left only nine of them, while SLATE was even better at only three. The results for CRATE (6), CARET (2), LEAST (8), PLATE (4) and several others were in the same ballpark.
My first guess, chosen randomly, was BROIL – which probably ranks as one of the best openers I’ve had since switching away from STARE. Unfortunately it was not very lucky today, giving me only a yellow L and leaving 222 words.
I figured the L might well go in the second postion, and with O and I ruled out it made sense to include A and E as the vowel options. SLATE seemed like an obvious choice to tick all of those boxes while also adding a couple more common consonants.
And here my luck changed. SLATE gave me two more yellows and turned the L green, and in the process cut my answer pool to a mere three words. Of course I didn’t know that at the time, because you can only use WordleBot once the game is over. However, my searching also turned up a trio of possible answers, ELECT, FLEET and CLEFT.
The good news was that if they were the only words left, I now couldn’t score lower than a 4/6 – because whichever one I picked would rule out one of the other two. However, I didn’t know for sure that I hadn’t missed a couple of other answers. For that reason, I decided to go for CLEFT, because it had five different letters, whereas ELECT and FLEET both included a repeat.
The logic was sound, in that I’d get more information in the event that I needed it. But I didn’t: CLEFT was the actual answer, so I scored another welcome 3/6 – and beat WordleBot, too.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #957)
In a different time zone where it’s still Thursday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #957, 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 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 #957.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is not dead.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #957)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #957) was… ALIVE.
If you’ve been vexed by the past four Wordle games then today’s instalment should provide some relief. WordleBot says it has an average score of 3.6, making it the easiest for more than a week.
In a sense, that might be surprising – because ALIVE contains an uncommon letter, in the form of V. But on the flip side, it also contains three vowels, and more vowels usually equals an easier Wordle.
After several fallow days for the best Wordle starting words, today proved more fruitful for some of the top choices. SLATE, until recently WordleBot’s top pick, left only four answers, a figure matched by PLATE and PLACE. PLANE went one better, leaving three.
My random start word, SHALT, was nowhere near as helpful, which was poor luck because in other circumstances it could have been a good one; WordleBot awarded it a 95/99 rating and said it was a “strong opening guess”. Today, however, it left a hefty 124 words for me to sift through.
Well, in theory it did. In reality I didn’t try to identify many of them, because there were clearly too many to make it worth my time. Instead, I simply focused on the most common remaining letters, which were E, R, O, I, C and N. I wanted to include the yellow A and L again too, so came up with CLEAR as a good second guess – and was rewarded by the L turning green.
With E and A both still in yellow status, but ruled out of a few positions, I was able to form an idea of what structure the word could have. The A could only go at the start or end of the answer now, and words that end with A are not particularly common. So AL— was likely, with E at the end.
That gave me ALIVE and ALIKE and ALONE and ALIEN, four of the five words that WordleBot said were still available to me. I missed ALLEY, however.
Which one of the five to go for? Well, playing one of ALIKE or ALIVE made sense, because either one would guarantee a 4/6 if it were wrong – whereas the others could have left me with a 50/50 between those two words and therefore a possible 5/6 finish. Choosing between those two, meanwhile, was made easier by the fact that I thought ALIKE might have been a past Wordle answer.
So I decided to go for ALIVE, and was delighted when it proved to be correct – I’d just got a one-in-five chance right! But postscript: I wasn’t quite as lucky as I thought I’d been. After the game I checked the past answers list, and realized that not only had ALIKE been a solution before, but so had ALONE and ALIEN. Yes, out of those five possible answers, only two were yet to appear!
Not that I care about that, of course. Whether I was little lucky or very lucky, I scored a 3/6 for the first time since Saturday, and that will do just fine.
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 #957, Thursday 1 February: ALIVE
- Wordle #956, Wednesday 31 January: BULKY
- Wordle #955, Tuesday 30 January: EXPEL
- Wordle #954, Monday 29 January: LEGGY
- Wordle #953, Sunday 28 January: EMBER
- Wordle #952, Saturday 27 January: SNAKE
- 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
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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