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 #981) – 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 #981) – 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 #981) – 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 #981) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is 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.
Wordle hints (game #981) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #981.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a metal worker.
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 #981)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #981) is… SMITH.
This takes us from one end of the spectrum almost to the other; after yesterday’s incredibly tough PIPER (see below), SMITH is a much more manageable puzzle that has an average score of 3.7.
SMITH has several hallmarks of an easy game, in that it starts with S (the most common opening letter among Wordle’s answers), and ends with TH (one of the more common endings). There are no repeated letters and no really uncommon letters, either. However, M and H are in the middle of the probability range and don’t appear in many good start words, which is probably why the average is not down below 3.5.
Another factor that might have confused people is that SMITH is more commonly used as a proper noun than a noun these days, and names are not included among the answers unless they have a dual meaning as this one does. You’re also far more likely to hear SMITH as part of a longer word – blacksmith, say – than you are on its own, and interestingly it doesn’t appear among Word and Phrase Info‘s top 60,000 words.
That aside, it still counts as a straightforward Wordle, and one that is unlikely to result in many failures. Indeed, if you got very lucky with your choice of the best Wordle starting words a 3/6 should certainly have been in reach, and you may even have had a chance of a 2/6.
That’s exactly what happened to me, with FILTH – not my choice as such, because I use a different random word each day – leaving me with only one possible solution, which I duly played at the first opportunity. The other big successes today were SLATE and SAINT, which each left eight options.
Much as I like to score a 2/6, I’d rather have had to work a little harder for it, but that’s probably just me never being satisfied. The main thing is that I beat WordleBot, which could only manage a below-par 4/6. Job done.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #980)
In a different time zone where it’s still Saturday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #980, 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 P.
P is a very common first letter among Wordle answers. It’s the fifth most common in the alphabet and begins 141 solutions in total.
- 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 R.
R is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – it’s actually the 4th most common there, behind E, Y and T.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #980.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a player of a musical instrument.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #980)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #980) was… PIPER.
Did you solve this one? Really? Because there’s no shame if you didn’t. PIPER has an average score of 5.2, according to WordleBot, which officially makes it the most difficult Wordle of 2024 so far. Oh, but it’s much, much harder than even that makes it sound.
I’ve kept a record of every game since early April 2022, which was around the time that WordleBot launched. That’s a total of 685 games, and in that time we’ve only had 14 puzzles with an average of five or above, plus one above six – the most difficult Wordle ever (PARER, with its remarkable 6.3 average).
PIPER sits in the middle of that range: it’s the equal seventh hardest ever, level with NANNY and JUDGE. It is, in case I haven’t made this clear, very difficult.
Why? Well the repeated P is one factor; most Wordles with a repeated letter are tougher than the average puzzle, but P is a fairly unlikely candidate for the duplicate treatment, which makes it harder still.
There are in fact a mere 18 words, out of the game’s original 2,309 solutions, which contain more than one P. PIPER is the eighth we’ve had, so we’re about on schedule with them; POLYP, GUPPY, APPLE, APPLY, HAPPY, PULPY and PAPER are the others.
That’s not the real problem here, though. Instead, that would be the ER ending.
You know all about them by now, right? Those pesky little blighters that are so numerous that it’s always a struggle to narrow them down. I hate them.
The combination of an ER word with a repeat regularly leads to a high average score. RIPER (game #613) is a fine example that only differs from PIPER by one letter, and which had an average of 5.4. You can also consider the likes of EMBER (4.7), RUDER (4.6), SEVER (4.6), FEWER (4.9) and of course the aforementioned PARER.
Playing one of the best Wordle starting words won’t necessarily have helped, because even once you were down into the teens you’ll still have had lots of possible consonant-vowel combinations for the first three letters. PLATE (which left 25 answers), PARSE (9) and PLANE (27) were the only ones out of WordleBot’s top 20 openers to dip below 30 anyway, so it was slim pickings on that front.
My opener, STUFF, was spectacularly unlucky, uncovering no letters at all and leaving me with… wait for it… 1,326 possible solutions. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Still, I had ruled out a couple of common letters already, and was able to chalk off a few more on my second guess with CRANE. However, with E and R both turning yellow, my mind immediately turned to horrible thoughts that this might be an ER answer.
WordleBot told me later that I now had 83 answers left, and given how difficult the word ended up being, you might think I would only have scraped home in a 5/6 or 6/6. But no – I got very, very lucky and managed to score a 4/6.
It all hinged on my third guess. I wanted to include either O or I, plus the most common consonant still left, which was L. And I wanted to play E and R at the end of the word. I nearly went for OLDER or ILDER, but eventually settled on PLIER, as P is a very common starting letter.
That guess proved to be inspired – or just very fortunate: the P, E and R all turned green, the I turned yellow, and I now had only two options left. Better still, I didn’t even consider one of them, PIKER, because frankly I have never heard of it.
The upshot was that I played PIPER with some confidence, and walked away with a very lucky 4/6 on a day when many others will not be so fortunate. My apologies if you are one of them.
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 #980, Saturday 24 February: PIPER
- Wordle #979, Friday 23 February: APART
- Wordle #978, Thursday 22 February: HEAVY
- Wordle #977, Wednesday 21 February: BUILD
- Wordle #976, Tuesday 20 February: MATCH
- Wordle #975, Monday 19 February: PRICE
- Wordle #974, Sunday 18 February: RIDGE
- Wordle #973, Saturday 17 February: PSALM
- Wordle #972, Friday 16 February: STASH
- Wordle #971, Thursday 15 February: ASCOT
- Wordle #970, Wednesday 14 February: TALON
- Wordle #969, Tuesday 13 February: SCRAM
- Wordle #968, Monday 12 February: PASTA
- Wordle #967, Sunday 11 February: NEVER
- Wordle #966, Saturday 10 February: FRIED
- Wordle #965, Friday 9 February: STIFF
- Wordle #964, Thursday 8 February: PLACE
- Wordle #963, Wednesday 7 February: AFTER
- Wordle #962, Tuesday 6 February: WHICH
- Wordle #961, Monday 5 February: REPEL
- Wordle #960, Sunday 4 February: VERGE
- Wordle #959, Saturday 3 February: MICRO
- Wordle #958, Friday 2 February: CLEFT
- 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
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.
Services Marketplace – Listings, Bookings & Reviews