It's time for your daily round of Wordle hints, expertly crafted to help you keep your streak going even on the toughest of days.
You might think that you don't need any clues for Wordle today, but remember: failure in this game is only ever six guesses away.
Below, you'll find a selection of Wordle hints to guide you in the right direction. You don't have to use them all, but there are five in total should you need them, covering vowels, starting letter, ending letter and more. And if you don't have time to play at all, you can see the answer, too.
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: Wordle hints and today's answer are below, so don't read on if you don't want to see them.
Wordle hints (game #869) – 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 #869) – 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 #869) – 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 #869) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is 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.
Wordle hints (game #869) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #869.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a blaze of light.
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 #869)
Today's Wordle answer (game #869) is… FLARE.
After two tricky Wordles in a row we end the weekend with a much easier one. WordleBot says FLARE has an average score of 3.8, and if you began with certain of the best Wordle starting words you'll have had a very good start indeed.
That's because FLARE has an A-E format at the end that's shared by several of those popular starters: SLATE, CRANE, TRACE, CRATE, STALE, STARE and others all follow that pattern. What's more, some of those also have either an L or an R in the word too, further reducing the options.
That meant that in terms of my own game I scored an excellent opening that gave me three green letters from STARE. Remarkably, I now had a mere four possible answers left, and a 3/6 was easily within reach. TRACE, CRANE and CRATE players, meanwhile, all had seven solutions to pick from.
I didn't know for sure that I had only four answers to choose from, because WordleBot only reveals that information afterwards. And somehow, I only managed to find three.
I honestly don't know how I made that mistake, because it really should have been very, very simple. Clearly there was going to be a consonant before the –ARE part of the word – though I did quickly run through the options for the likes of -IARE and -EARE first. And the chances are, that consonant would be an L, because along with R it's one of the most common consonants to appear in the second position. In fact, L is in position #2 in 200 of the 2,309 original Wordle answers (R is there in 267).
I ran through the options and came up with FLARE and GLARE. I tried a few other possibles, including starting the word with a vowel, and found AWARE. But incredibly, I missed BLARE.
This oversight could easily have come back to haunt me, but thankfully it didn't. I played GLARE, got the green L, then played FLARE with 100% confidence that it had to be the answer. It was the answer – but unknown to me, it could actually have been BLARE instead. Anyway, the upshot of all that is that I scored a 3/6 I probably didn't deserve on a day when I had a very fortunate start.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #868)
In a different time zone where it's still Saturday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #868, 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 M.
M is a middling letter when it comes to starting a word. It sits 10th in the rankings, with 107 occurrences in the 2,309 answers.
- 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 A.
A is a relatively common ending letter. It ranks 10th in this regard and today's game is one of 63 in which you'll find an A there.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #868.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is an excessive enthusiasm.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #868)
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #868) was… MANIA.
Not for the first time, Wordle has reminded me of London buses: you wait ages for one difficult game with a repeated letter to come along and then two turn up in succession.
MANIA, like Friday's ARDOR, has an average score of 4.2 according to WordleBot, a high average that owes its difficulty mostly to that repeated A. It's a relatively common letter to be repeated (there are 69 games in which it happens), but even so it's a complication you could probably do without. Adding to the problems here is the fact that the second A appears at the end of the answer (it's only the 10th most likely to be found there) and that it starts with an M (the 10th most common opener). Still, at least none of the letters are downright uncommon – they're just in annoying places.
Only one of the best Wordle starting words made any headway towards solving it today; SAINT left just five possible solutions. But that's not a word that many people begin with, and more popular options such as SLATE (197 remaining answers) and STARE (186) barely made a dent in the list.
That I managed to score a 3/6 therefore owes a huge amount to luck. But it didn't arrive on my second guess. On days where I've started with a single yellow A I always play MADLY or BADLY. Today I went with the latter of those and was left with 25 answers still. WordleBot gave me a luck score of just 7 out of 99 for that!
I jotted down a list of the words I thought could be the answer and came up with about 15 including the likes of MAMMA, MAGMA, MANGA, GAMMA, MANIC, MAGIC, MANGO and MAFIA, plus FAUNA, PANIC, CANON and a few others. Oh, and MANIA, the actual answer.
As you can see, there are a lot of Ms, Ns and Is there, plus a few that have a second A at the end. So I decided to play a narrowing-down word containing lots of those letters. But the harder I looked, the more convinced I became that MANIA actually fit the bill best – it started with an M, had an N and an I, and ended in an A. Therefore, I played it in order to try to reduce the answer pool, rather than with an real expectation of solving it.
But… I got lucky. How lucky? Well, from 7/99 on guess #2 to 97/99 on guess #3 lucky. That's a 1/25 chance and I nailed it. Which probably means I'll have terrible fortune tomorrow, but hey, that's another day.
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 #868, Saturday 4 November: MANIA
- Wordle #867, Friday 3 November: ARDOR
- Wordle #866, Thursday 2 November: UNTIL
- Wordle #865, Wednesday 1 November: NOISE
- Wordle #864, Tuesday 31 October: BLEAK
- Wordle #863, Monday 30 October: GRAIL
- Wordle #862, Sunday 29 October: PHONY
- Wordle #861, Saturday 28 October: MASON
- Wordle #860, Friday 27 October: NOBLE
- Wordle #859, Thursday 26 October: PIQUE
- Wordle #858, Wednesday 25 October: RETRY
- Wordle #857, Tuesday 24 October: CAUSE
- Wordle #856, Monday 23 October: TEMPO
- Wordle #855, Sunday 22 October: GIVEN
- Wordle #854, Saturday 21 October: SMIRK
- Wordle #853, Friday 20 October: OCCUR
- Wordle #852, Thursday 19 October: SPLAT
- Wordle #851, Wednesday 18 October: MERCY
- Wordle #850, Tuesday 17 October: ADULT
- Wordle #849, Monday 16 October: GRAPH
- Wordle #848, Sunday 15 October: LEAKY
- Wordle #847, Saturday 14 October: AGENT
- Wordle #846, Friday 13 October: UNCLE
- Wordle #845, Thursday 12 October: KNELT
- Wordle #844, Wednesday 11 October: SKUNK
- Wordle #843, Tuesday 10 October: SNAIL
- Wordle #842, Monday 9 October: TRUTH
- Wordle #841, Sunday 8 October: BINGE
- Wordle #840, Saturday 7 October: VIOLA
- Wordle #839, Friday 6 October: CHIME
- Wordle #838, Thursday 5 October: BUNCH
- Wordle #837, Wednesday 4 October: SPURT
- Wordle #836, Tuesday 3 October: WHILE
- Wordle #835, Monday 2 October: MERRY
- Wordle #834, Sunday 1 October: BERET
- Wordle #833, Saturday 30 September: DADDY
- Wordle #832, Friday 29 September: AZURE
- Wordle #831, Thursday 28 September: COACH
- Wordle #830, Wednesday 27 September: SMILE
- Wordle #829, Tuesday 26 September: LOYAL
- Wordle #828, Monday 25 September: ROCKY
- Wordle #827, Sunday 24 September: RIGHT
- Wordle #826, Saturday 23 September: CAROL
- Wordle #825, Friday 22 September: BRUSH
- Wordle #824, Thursday 21 September: STONE
- Wordle #823, Wednesday 20 September: SNARE
- Wordle #822, Tuesday 19 September: CLOSE
- Wordle #821, Monday 18 September: FRANK
- Wordle #820, Sunday 17 September: MUSIC
- Wordle #819, Saturday 16 September: ANGEL
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 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.