If you’re looking for Wordle clues and hints then you’re in the right place. And you might well need them today – because this is the hardest puzzle we’ve had for a few days, with an average score of 4.2.
I’m a Wordle addict who’s been playing since December 2021, so I can definitely help you solve Wordle today and improve your game for tomorrow. Read on for my Wordle clues and hints to game #609 and bookmark this page so you can easily return tomorrow.
Oh, and if you also play Quordle then my Quordle today page contains clues and answers for that too.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about Wordle today and yesterday are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Marc is TechRadar’s UK Editor in Chief and has been playing Wordle for more than a year. 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 streak recently reached the 400 mark and he’ll be inconsolable if he loses it. Yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Wordle clues (game #609) – hint #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has vowels in three positions*.
* 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 clues (game #609) – hint #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle clues (game #609) – hint #3 – repeated letters
Does today’s Wordle have any repeated letters?
• There is one repeated letter 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 clues (game #609) – hint #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is 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.
Wordle clues (game #609) – hint #5 – last chance
Still looking for Wordle clues today? Don’t worry, I’ll give you one more for game #609.
- Today’s Wordle means to be of use to.
If you just want to know the answer at this stage you can scroll down to see it, 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 the solution then DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER BECAUSE THE ANSWER IS DIRECTLY BELOW. So don’t say you weren’t warned!
Wordle today (game #609) – the answer
The answer to today’s Wordle, game #609, is… AVAIL.
First things first: AVAIL is quite a difficult word. WordleBot says people are solving it in an average of 4.2 guesses, and I’m not surprised by that. It’s a relatively obscure term compared to many Wordle answers, and also has an unusual format that might have made it harder to uncover.
What do I mean? Well, –AIL is not that common an ending in Wordle – there are only eight answers in total that finish that way. And what’s more, most of the others start with a consonant: FRAIL, TRAIL, GRAIL, FLAIL, QUAIL, and SNAIL. Only EMAIL matches AVAIL by having a vowel-consonant-A-I-L pattern. And for that reason alone you might easily have missed this answer when narrowing down your options.
Secondly, the A is repeated. This is fairly common as repeats go, with 69 instances across Wordle’s 2,309 games, but it’s still something that only happens about 3% of the time.
So it’s set up to be hard, then, although kicking off with one of the best Wordle starting words will have made it easier. SLATE, WordleBot’s favorite, left a mere 12 answers, while SLANT left 20. My own choice of STARE, meanwhile, left 42, with just a single green A in the middle to work with.
I decided not to chance a 2/6 today – in fact I generally don’t in this situation. If I think I have any more than about a dozen possible answers it’s just not worth the risk. Yeah, that’s cowardly, but I’d rather increase my chances of getting a 3/6 than get the odd 2/6 and a bunch of 4s or 5s.
Based on the words I’d identified, CLIMB seemed a good fit. Quite a few possible answers included an I as a second vowel (PLAID, PLAIN, AGAIN, CLAIM, CHAIN), and lots also had an L paired with a C, F, B or P at the start (FLANK, PLANK, CLANK, CLAMP, CLANG, BLAND, BLANK etc).
WordleBot described it as a “solid guess”, but stopped short of saying it was lucky. It was, though – it left just two possible solutions.
I didn’t know that for sure at that stage, but as hard as I looked I could only find QUAIL and AVAIL. Which to play? Well, Q is very unusual. But then a double-A and a V is also pretty uncommon.
In the end I went with AVAIL for no particular reason and scored a solid 3/6 again. I’m sure my luck will run out soon, but I’ll take it for now.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Wordle yesterday (game #608) – clues
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #608 too.
- Wordle yesterday had two vowels.
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was C.
- There was one repeated letter in yesterday’s Wordle.
- The last letter in yesterday’s Wordle was E.
- Yesterday’s Wordle is a secret stash.
Wordle yesterday (game #608) – the answer
The answer to yesterday’s Wordle, game #608, was… CACHE.
This was more difficult than Thursday’s MAGIC in some ways, but there wasn’t much in it. WordleBot says it has an average score of 4, compared to 3.9 for that one, and I doubt too many people will have lost their streak here.
The repeated C is by far the most complicated thing about it; that only happens in 29 out of Wordle’s 2,309 games, so it’s pretty rare. The last time it happened was CATCH back in October (game #483).
Anyway, if you found that you’ll have completed this Wordle easily, because the other letters are all pretty common. H is not particularly likely to be found in position #4 in general, but if you had that C in the middle it will have been one of only a couple of possible choices.
Some of the best Wordle starting words were very helpful today. SLATE left 37 answers, and my own choice of STARE left 45 – but if you played CRANE, CRATE, CARTE or TRACE you had just five to sift through.
Even with a green E at the end and a yellow A, I could see there were too many options for me to have much chance of scoring a 2/6. So I took what some people will consider the coward’s approach and played a word I knew couldn’t be the answer, in order to narrow things down further.
I wanted to find out where the A went, so I left that in, but ditched the already-confirmed E in favor of an extra letter. BACON seemed like a good choice, but it worked out way better than I could have expected – in fact it left me with a certain 3/6!
This was incredibly lucky, but hey, I’ve had plenty of bad luck in this game lately too. With -AC-E all confirmed, CACHE was the only possibly answer, meaning I matched WordleBot’s own score and beat the average by a full guess.
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 #608, Friday 17 February: CACHE
- Wordle #607, Thursday 16 February: MAGIC
- Wordle #606, Wednesday 15 February: SALSA
- Wordle #605, Tuesday 14 February: SOUND
- Wordle #604, Monday 13 February: USAGE
- Wordle #603, Sunday 12 February: GIANT
- Wordle #602, Saturday 11 February: DEBUG
- Wordle #601, Friday 10 February: HEADY
- Wordle #600, Thursday 9 February: STAGE
- Wordle #599, Wednesday 8 February: FLAIL
- Wordle #598, Tuesday 7 February: APPLE
- Wordle #597, Monday 6 February: NINTH
- Wordle #596, Sunday 5 February: DANCE
- Wordle #595, Saturday 4 February: UNLIT
- Wordle #594, Friday 3 February: TASTY
- Wordle #593, Thursday 2 February: SHIRK
- Wordle #592, Wednesday 1 February: SCOLD
- Wordle #591, Tuesday 31 January: CROSS
- Wordle #590, Monday 30 January: CRAVE
- Wordle #589, Sunday 29 January: FISHY
- Wordle #588, Saturday 28 January: FLIRT
- Wordle #587, Friday 27 January: WORRY
- Wordle #586, Thursday 26 January: BEEFY
- Wordle #585, Wednesday 25 January: MAIZE
- Wordle #584, Tuesday 24 January: COUNT
- Wordle #583, Monday 23 January: ELUDE
- Wordle #582, Sunday 22 January: MATEY
- Wordle #581, Saturday 21 January: BLURB
- Wordle #580, Friday 20 January: ALTER
- Wordle #579, Thursday 19 January: MUCKY
- Wordle #578, Wednesday 18 January: CHARD
- Wordle #577, Tuesday 17 January: ADOPT
- Wordle #576, Monday 16 January: FROCK
- Wordle #575, Sunday 15 January: SPIRE
- Wordle #574, Saturday 14 January: KOALA
- Wordle #573, Friday 13 January: HUMAN
- Wordle #572, Thursday 12 January: LEAPT
- Wordle #571, Wednesday 11 January: SEDAN
- Wordle #570, Tuesday 10 January: GRIMY
- Wordle #569, Monday 9 January: PIXIE
- Wordle #568, Sunday 8 January: OPERA
- Wordle #567, Saturday 7 January: LEMON
- Wordle #566, Friday 6 January: BELIE
- Wordle #565, Thursday 5 January: SLEEK
- Wordle #564, Wednesday 4 January: LAYER
- Wordle #563, Tuesday 3 January: ANTIC
- Wordle #562, Monday 2 January: SKIRT
- Wordle #561, Sunday 1 January: WHINE
- Wordle #560, Saturday 31 December: MANLY
- Wordle #559, Friday 30 December: MOLAR
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 2023.
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 (opens in new tab) or the New York Times’ Crossword app (iOS (opens in new tab) / Android (opens in new tab)), 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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