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? TechRadar’s Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at our NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for our verdict on two of the New York Times’ other brainteasers.
SPOILER WARNING: Today’s Wordle answer and hints are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.
Wordle hints (game #1358) – 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 #1358) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is N.
N is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter. Only 37 games begin with it and it ranks just 18th in this regard.
Wordle hints (game #1358) – 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 #1358) – clue #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 hints (game #1358) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1357.
- Today’s Wordle answer is something you might gaze at, metaphorically.
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 #1358)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- My start word performance: FLUSH (326 remaining answers)
- WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (30)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1358) is… NAVEL.
We’re all prone to a spot of NAVEL gazing from time to time, and I don’t mean literally staring at your belly button. But that’s just about the only time you’d ever use that word, right? Otherwise you’d say ‘belly button’. I don’t think that’s just me – but let me know in the comments if I’m wrong, and it’s something only six-year-olds say!
If my hunch is correct, NAVEL might not have been the first words that popped into your head when contemplating today’s Wordle. Maybe that explains its relatively high average score of 4.1, because V aside it’s not an obviously difficult one.
Sure, V is an uncommon letter in the game (and in English generally). As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, it’s the fifth least likely to appear, although admittedly there’s a big gap between it and the bottom four of Q, Z, X and J.
But N, A, E and L are all ultra-common in the game, and a couple of the best Wordle start words duly cut down the options nicely here. CRANE, for instance, left a mere 30 possible solutions.
Maybe alternative words were the problem; lots of people played PANEL on the third and fourth guesses, for instance. But not me, because I got lucky again.
It didn’t feel like that on the first guess, when FLUSH gave me only a yellow L and left 326 options. I didn’t know that at the time, of course – WordleBot told me afterwards – but I knew I had far too many to attempt a solve at this stage.
Instead, I looked at the top 10 most common letters, ruled out the S that had already appeared, and assembled LATER from the others. This was also a guard against it potentially being an ER word, which I now always worry about.
LATER was the ‘Bot’s fourth choice, behind AIRED, DATER and AIDER, but performed better than any of them in that it cut the shortlist to seven words. And with two green letters now having joined my still-yellow L, I figured I had enough info to find them.
And I did: NAVEL, GAVEL, CAMEL, PANEL, PALED, BALED and BAGEL. But I remembered CAMEL and BAGEL as past Wordle answers, and ruled out PALED and BALED as unlikely due to their ED endings.
That left a trio of PANEL, GAVEL and NAVEL. And here’s where fortune smiled upon me.
I mistakenly thought that I should play one of the latter two, because going for PANEL might leave me a 50/50 otherwise – but of course that was wrong, because the N in the middle of that word would have turned yellow and pointed the way to NAVEL anyway.
So with that in mind, I played NAVEL and got lucky – all five letters turned green. If I’d spent a little longer on it, I’m sure I’d have gone with the more common word, PANEL, and have had to settle for a four. Instead, I got a slightly undeserved three. But I won’t do too much navel gazing about it.
How did you do today? Send me an email or let me know in the comments.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1357)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1357, 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 T.
T is one of the most common starting letters in the game, beginning 149 of Wordle’s 2,309 answers. That gives it a ranking of fourth in the alphabet, behind only S, C and B.
- 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 P.
P is a middling end letter in Wordle. It features in 56 answers, which places it 12th in the alphabet. Don’t expect it to happen that often compared to the likes of E, Y and T.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1357.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a group of soldiers.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1357)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- My start word performance: LOUSY (239 remaining answers)
- WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (66)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1357) was… TROOP.
The curse of the double-O word strikes again. Not too terribly, admittedly – I scored a four here. But the average is 3.6, so mine was below par and could have been worse still if not for a little luck. This remains my most hated of all Wordle formats.
As OO words go, it’s really not too bad, helped by the presence of the very common T and R at the start.
Those two letters form the seventh most common opening pairing in the game, so it makes sense that people knew to play for them – and that they would make it easier to solve in general. The P at the end is not so common, but it’s not like you’re dealing with a streak-killer here.
I began with LOUSY, which was just that and which left 239 options. I had a yellow O, and feared it might be one of a pair, but didn’t play for that just yet. Instead, I went for CRONE, reasoning that common letters was my best approach at this stage.
This was a “terrific choice,” according to WordleBot, but left 17 answers still – so, too many for a realistic shot at a three.
I should at least have guaranteed myself a four, but missed too many options. I had only nine on my list – TROOP, DROOP, DROIT, PROOF, FROTH, BROTH, BROOK, BROAD and BROOM – but missed eight more including the oh-so-obvious likes of GROOM, BROOD and DROID.
Even based on the words I did have, PROOF was not a great next choice; it might have left me a three-way choice between BROAD, BROTH and DROIT, or a 50/50 between TROOP and DROOP. I don’t know why I played it, really.
WordleBot said DEPOT would have been much better, and indeed it would have guaranteed me that four. As it happened, PROOF did leave the DROOP/TROOP 50/50, but here I had some undeserved luck, guessing TROOP and escaping with that 4/6 I didn’t really deserve.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than three 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 #1357, Friday 7 March: TROOP
- Wordle #1356, Thursday 6 March: ALERT
- Wordle #1355, Wednesday 5 March: SCRUM
- Wordle #1354, Tuesday 4 March: CHECK
- Wordle #1353, Monday 3 March: SPEAR
- Wordle #1352, Sunday 2 March: DEITY
- Wordle #1351, Saturday 1 March: HOVER
- Wordle #1350, Friday 28 February: FUZZY
- Wordle #1349, Thursday 27 February: LODGE
- Wordle #1348, Wednesday 26 February: AWARD
- Wordle #1347, Tuesday 25 February: DRYER
- Wordle #1346, Monday 24 February: GLAND
- Wordle #1345, Sunday 23 February: OTTER
- Wordle #1344, Saturday 22 February: CREAM
- Wordle #1343, Friday 21 February: CLOVE
- Wordle #1342, Thursday 20 February: ROACH
- Wordle #1341, Wednesday 19 February: MADLY
- Wordle #1340, Tuesday 18 February: INDIE
- Wordle #1339, Monday 17 February: TRAIL
- Wordle #1338, Sunday 16 February: SUAVE
- Wordle #1337, Saturday 15 February: CROOK
- Wordle #1336, Friday 14 February: DITTY
- Wordle #1335, Thursday 13 February: RUMBA
- Wordle #1334, Wednesday 12 February: RAPID
- Wordle #1333, Tuesday 11 February: SCORE
- Wordle #1332, Monday 10 February: GOODY
- Wordle #1331, Sunday 9 February: BONUS
- Wordle #1330, Saturday 8 February: STEEP
- Wordle #1329, Friday 7 February: SWATH
- Wordle #1328, Thursday 6 February: PUPIL
- Wordle #1327, Wednesday 5 February: PEDAL
- Wordle #1326, Tuesday 4 February: TOOTH
- Wordle #1325, Monday 3 February: REVUE
- Wordle #1324, Sunday 2 February: CHORE
- Wordle #1323, Saturday 1 February: RIVET
- Wordle #1322, Friday 31 January: TOAST
- Wordle #1321, Thursday 30 January: FALSE
- Wordle #1320, Wednesday 29 January: UDDER
- Wordle #1319, Tuesday 28 January: FEVER
- Wordle #1318, Monday 27 January: SHUNT
- Wordle #1317, Sunday 26 January: SUNNY
- Wordle #1316, Saturday 25 January: CRISP
- Wordle #1315, Friday 24 January: CREPE
- Wordle #1314, Thursday 23 January: UPPER
- Wordle #1313, Wedneday 22 January: REACH
- Wordle #1312, Tuesday 21 January: ICING
- Wordle #1311, Monday 20 January: SQUID
- Wordle #1310, Sunday 19 January: ROWER
- Wordle #1309, Saturday 18 January: SILLY
- Wordle #1308, Friday 17 January: PROSE
- Wordle #1307, Thursday 16 January: FLINT
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.