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 #986) – 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 #986) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is F.
F is a very common starting letter in Wordle. It ranks seventh behind only S, C, B, T, P and A and overall there are 135 solutions that begin with this letter.
Wordle hints (game #986) – 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 #986) – 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 #986) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #986.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a number.
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 #986)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #986) is… FORTY.
Some days everything goes your way. You wake up fully refreshed from a good night’s sleep; it’s a beautiful morning, sunny and crisp; your calendar is mercifully free of meetings; and Wordle plays out just perfectly.
Today was not one of those days.
FORTY isn’t a horribly difficult puzzle, with WordleBot stating that it has an average score of 3.9 – identical to that for the previous two games (each of which were upgraded from 3.8 by the time everyone had finished playing). All five letters are common either overall (O, R and T) or in their specific position here (F and Y). There are no repeats, and the word is about as far from obscure as you could get.
Plus, some of the best Wordle starting words cut down the options more successfully than any did in the previous two days: CRATE left only 10 solutions and CARTE left nine. Many of the other popular choices were below 50, for instance SLATE left 45 and TRACE 39. It’s not exactly easy, but it’s not hard either.
So, what went wrong for me? Everything, pretty much. My random start word was a stinker: SPASM has two Ss when I didn’t even need one, an M – which was helpful yesterday, but not today – a single vowel (which doesn’t appear in the answer) and a pointless P. After all that, I still had 1,057 possible solutions. Great.
Things did initially get better, with my second choice, TRICE, giving me two yellows and cutting those 1,000-plus options to only eight. A three could have been possible, a four should have been. And then for some inexplicable reason I played BLURT.
The eight words open to me were, according to WordleBot, FORTH, NORTH, WORTH, FORTY, ROTOR, ROBOT, BURNT and BLURT. But somehow I completely missed the first half of that list and only found the latter four. With those words in mind, BLURT was not a bad choice – it could have been correct, and would have identified the answer if it wasn’t, for a guaranteed 4/6. But it shows once again how important it is to hunt for every possible answer once you narrow things down.
Playing BLURT was not a complete disaster, but it only ruled out three words, so I still had five left – and only three guesses remaining. At this point I took another look at the board and finally realized my mistake; of course, the T might actually go in position #4! So I jotted down FORTH, WORTH and NORTH, and played WORTH because I remembered that NORTH had been the answer in late January (#946).
So, in my head, I had a 50/50, and would score a 5/6 at worst. In reality, FORTY was also an option… but I’d still managed to miss it! When the H in WORTH didn’t turn green I was surprised to say the least. And worried. I only had two guesses left, and no idea of what the word could be. But another few minutes of searching turned up FORTY as an option and I played that next for a 5/6. I guess my brain just wasn’t working today.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #985)
In a different time zone where it’s still Thursday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #985, 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 I.
I is only the 19th most common starting letter in Wordle, and just 34 of the original 2,309 answers begin with it.
- 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 #985.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a visual representation.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #985)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #985) was… IMAGE.
We don’t get that many Wordle words with three vowels, but when they do arrive they’re usually on the easier side of things. The previous example was ALIVE, on February 1, and that one had an average score of 3.6. IMAGE is seemingly harder than that, with a 3.8 average, but it’s still eminently solvable compared to some.
It’s not a word that the best Wordle starting words were particularly helpful for, with none of the top 20 dipping below 25. SLICE was the best of them – it left 26 answers – while TRICE (27), LEAST (28), STARE (29) and SNARE, STALE and SLATE (all 31) were just behind it.
CREME, my random starter, was better still – no doubt thanks to the inclusion of the M in it. With a green E also uncovered on that first guess, I now had only 23 words to choose from, so the fact that it took me another three attempts is a bit disappointing.
I came up with most of these 23, including MOVIE, MIDGE, MATTE, MAIZE, MAUVE and MANGE, plus AMPLE, AMBLE, MOOSE, MOUSE, SMILE, AMUSE, SMOTE and SMITE. Based on those, MOIST seemed a good guess; that M was very common at the start, and the other four letters were sprinkled liberally across the words.
WordleBot only deemed it a “solid” guess, but it performed well, giving me a yellow I and cutting the options down to a pair of words: IMAGE and IMBUE.
Unfortunately, I missed IMAGE completely. I’m not really sure how, because it’s a much more common word than IMBUE, but there you go. If I had spotted it, I’m certain I would have played it and scored a 3/6. But instead, I played IMBUE first, then realized my mistake and had to settle for a 4/6. Still, WordleBot could only match that, so it wasn’t a complete disaster.
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 #985, Thursday 29 February: IMAGE
- Wordle #984, Wednesday 28 February: DEVIL
- Wordle #983, Tuesday 27 February: SENSE
- Wordle #982, Monday 26 February: OFTEN
- Wordle #981, Sunday 25 February: SMITH
- 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
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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