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 #1276) – 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 #1276) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and C.
Wordle hints (game #1276) – 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 #1276) – 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 #1276) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1276.
- Today’s Wordle answer is to praise yourself excessively.
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 #1276)
- NYT average score: 3.7
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: STARE, LEAST (5 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: PERIL (392)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1276) is… BOAST.
I try not to BOAST too much in life, although I admit that I can occasionally cross the line from merely informing readers about my Wordle game into bragging about my success. Not that I’ve had the opportunity to do much of that recently anyway – my scores over the past few months have been average at best.
Today was another example: I solved it in four, despite its average (3.7) suggesting that a better result was eminently possible. Admittedly, that average will have been skewed by the fact that STARE – the third most common start word after ADIEU and AUDIO – left only five solutions today. In contrast, my randomly chosen PERIL provided me with a mammoth 392 choices for my second guess.
Once you get past about 50, or certainly 100, it probably doesn’t matter whether you have 392 or 1,392 on your shortlist really, because either way you’re not going to find them all. The important thing is to not even try to solve it; your focus should instead be on narrowing down the options.
I did that today with STONY, which contained three of the most common remaining letters, plus one vowel and a Y. You might wonder why I chose Y as the fifth letter, given that I could also have played C or A, two far more likely inclusions. However, the fact that E, R and L were all ruled out meant that three of the top five ending letters were already gone. T and Y were the next most likely, so including them gave me a better chance of finding that final character.
It was a decent theory, but in practice I could have put something else in place of the Y, because the T turned yellow and ultimately ended up being the ending letter. Still, STONY cut my list from 392 to a mere six, so it worked pretty well.
At this stage I did seek to find all of the possible answers, and came up with five: TOAST, BOAST, COAST, JOUST and ASCOT. The other one was GUSTO, according to WordleBot.
I ruled out ASCOT right away because I remembered it being a past Wordle answer – game #971 in February of this year. I didn’t recall that COAST had also appeared already (way back in November 2021), but fortunately that didn’t impact my game: I played TOAST first, probably because I do love to eat it (with cheese, ideally), then BOAST, and solved it in four.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1275)
In a different time zone where it’s still Sunday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1275, too.
- Wordle yesterday had 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).
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was 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.
- 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 Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1275.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is unconventionally stylish.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1275)
- NYT average score: 4.2
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SANER (51 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: DRAMA (807)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1275) was… FUNKY.
I had something of a rollercoaster game today, with lots of bad luck and then one big slice of good luck that combined to more or less even themselves out and leave me with a standard score of four on a day when the average is currently 4.2.
It all made for rather an odd board: no letters on the first guess, no letters on the second guess, one yellow on the third and then, seemingly out of nowhere, a solve on the fourth.
Of course when I analyzed the game – or rather, when WordleBot did – there was a more nuanced story lurking beneath the surface. My opening guess was DRAMA, my random word generator continuing to make life difficult for me by giving me a repeated letter in it for the third day in a row. That drew a blank and left 802 possible answers, whereas CRANE (WordleBot’s favorite) was down at 81. Advantage: ‘bot.
When I followed with STILE I thought I was certain to uncover at least one letter; after all, these were five of the most common remaining letters. And WordleBot agreed; this was “exactly what I would’ve picked in this situation”, it said. But it was also incredibly unlucky. My expected number of answers left after this guess was 19. My actual number of answers left was 62, and I still didn’t have a single letter to play with.
There was almost certainly going to be a vowel included, so I added in O and U for my third guess, together with C, G and H. WordleBot preferred PHONY, and in fairness it would have performed better, leaving only three words whereas COUGH left me with 10. But again, a lot of that was due to (bad) luck on my part; my luck scores at this stage had been 13/99, 4/99 and 9/99. I must have stepped on a black cat while opening an umbrella indoors under a ladder, or something, to deserve that.
However, it all changed on the fourth guess. I finally had a letter to work with, a yellow U, and worked out that -UN-Y was the likely pattern; it gave me BUNNY, FUNNY, PUNNY, PUNKY and FUNKY, while leaving out the N provided me with PUPPY, FUZZY, PUFFY and BUZZY. WordleBot also had JUNKY.
Based on those options it made sense to play FUNKY next; it wouldn’t guarantee me a solve in five, but at worst it would be a six – and there was always the chance it could be a four. I didn’t expect the latter outcome, but after three slices of bad luck finally had some good fortune, as all five letters turned green.
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 #1275, Sunday 15 December: FUNKY
- Wordle #1274, Saturday 14 December: DROOL
- Wordle #1273, Friday 13 December: BOXER
- Wordle #1272, Thursday 12 December: VYING
- Wordle #1271, Wednesday 11 December: PLUMB
- Wordle #1270, Tuesday 10 December: PATIO
- Wordle #1269, Monday 9 December: FLUNG
- Wordle #1268, Sunday 8 December: HYENA
- Wordle #1267, Saturday 7 December: HILLY
- Wordle #1266, Friday 6 December: SHOVE
- Wordle #1265, Thursday 5 December: ENDOW
- Wordle #1264, Wednesday 4 December: CRYPT
- Wordle #1263, Tuesday 3 December: SHAKY
- Wordle #1262, Monday 2 December: GUILE
- Wordle #1261, Sunday 1 December: MAUVE
- Wordle #1260, Saturday 30 November: DOGMA
- Wordle #1259, Friday 29 November: HIPPO
- Wordle #1258, Thursday 28 November: CHOCK
- Wordle #1257, Wednesday 27 November: SLANG
- Wordle #1256, Tuesday 26 November: WITCH
- Wordle #1255, Monday 25 November: BROWN
- Wordle #1254, Sunday 24 November: TWIST
- Wordle #1253, Saturday 23 November: JELLY
- Wordle #1252, Friday 22 November: PEARL
- Wordle #1251, Thursday 21 November: SPINE
- Wordle #1250, Wednesday 20 November: NICHE
- Wordle #1249, Tuesday 19 November: GOING
- Wordle #1248, Monday 18 November: FRAIL
- Wordle #1247, Sunday 17 November: TALLY
- Wordle #1246, Saturday 16 November: VISOR
- Wordle #1245, Friday 15 November: TACKY
- Wordle #1244, Thursday 14 November: UVULA
- Wordle #1243, Wednesday 13 November: PRIMP
- Wordle #1242, Tuesday 12 November: FLOWN
- Wordle #1241, Monday 11 November: STOIC
- Wordle #1240, Sunday 10 November: INNER
- Wordle #1239, Saturday 9 November: SWELL
- Wordle #1238, Friday 8 November: READY
- Wordle #1237, Thursday 7 November: EVENT
- Wordle #1236, Wednesday 6 November: TRULY
- Wordle #1235, Tuesday 5 November: OCTET
- Wordle #1234, Monday 4 November: VINYL
- Wordle #1233, Sunday 3 November: BLAZE
- Wordle #1232, Saturday 2 November: SNOOP
- Wordle #1231, Friday 1 November: SIXTH
- Wordle #1230, Thursday 31 October: WEIRD
- Wordle #1229, Wednesday 30 October: EASEL
- Wordle #1228, Tuesday 29 October: TUNIC
- Wordle #1227, Monday 28 October: BAWDY
- Wordle #1226, Sunday 27 October: SANDY
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.