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, and you can also take a look at my NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for my 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 #1085) – 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 #1085) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is H.
H is not a particularly common starting letter in Wordle: only 69 games begin with it, and it ranks in 15th place.
Wordle hints (game #1085) – clue #3 – repeated letters
Does today’s Wordle have any repeated letters?
• There are 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 #1085) – 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 #1085) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1085.
- Today’s Wordle answer is therefore.
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 #1085)
- NYT average score: 4.4
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CRANE (11 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: LAGER (209)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Today's Wordle answer (game #1085) is… HENCE.
OK, so this appears to be a tough one. It's on a par with GROOM (4.4) at the time of writing, and like that answer it contains a repeated letter, in this case E. It also begins with a relatively uncommon starting letter; as my analysis of every Wordle answers shows, H is only the 15th most likely to begin a solution.
But you'll note that I say it appears to be a tough one, because I'm not sure I'm best placed to judge that today, having played appallingly then received a stroke of good luck that enabled me to score a four. I definitely didn't deserve it.
My guess is that the average score will come down as the day goes on, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up at around 4.1 or so.
Here's my reasoning. The thing about E is that it's the most common letter in the game, and also the most common to be repeated. It's much easier to find two Es than it is two Os, let alone two Cs or whatever, simply because you're so likely to have one of them on your first guess anyway. Of the nine most popular start words, seven contain an E, after all.
Beyond that, the other letters in HENCE, H aside, are all very common. GROOM had two middling letters in G and M, but HENCE only has one, and both C and N are in the top 10 most common letters overall.
What you really wanted in your start word, then, was C, N and E – which is why CRANE was the best of the top 20 options today, leaving only 11 answers. TRICE (15), SLICE (17), PLACE (17) and TRACE (17) were also great choices.
My start word lacked the N and C that would really have helped, but it did have an E. Unfortunately, it wasn't at the end of the word LAGER, so it only turned yellow not green and left me with 209 possible solutions.
My second guess was a bit more successful. I went with STONE because it added in the most common remaining letters – which is almost always my strategy these days – but WordleBot said it was unlucky (20/99 luck score) and and it still left me with a shortlist of 12.
Or rather, it did that theoretically – because I didn't find nearly that many. I was having a bit of a bad day, brain-wise, and only came up with a handful of those: MINCE, DUNCE, WINCE and NUDGE.
Spot the glaring error there? The answer couldn't be NUDGE, because G was already ruled out. That was compounded by my inability to come up with HENCE, FENCE, PENCE, WINCE, NICHE, NIECE, VENUE, KNIFE, UNDUE and INDIE. What an idiot.
WordleBot didn't even attempt diplomacy. “This guess wasn't my favorite,” said the 'bot, awarding me 59 for skill. Not going to disagree this time.
NUDGE did at least cut my options in half, so I had another look and still only came up with three answers: MINCE, HENCE and PENCE. I missed FENCE!!! I also missed WINCE!!! And KNIFE!!! What was going on?
Having played this so badly I really deserved a five or six. But of the three words I'd found, HENCE seemed like the best option, so I played it next and scored a four. But that was purely down to luck, and I'm taking no credit for it at all.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1084)
In a different time zone where it's still Friday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1084, 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 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 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 N.
N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it's the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1084.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a fruit.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1084)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: PLANE (18 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SPOUT (330)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1084) was… MELON.
Is Wordle getting harder again? It's now 27 days since we last had a puzzle with an average score of below 3.7, and 41 days since we had one lower than 3.6. Typically, we get three or four of the latter each month – and back in December we had 11 games with a score of 3.5 or less!
I'm slightly surprised that MELON has a score as high as 3.9, which WordleBot says it does, because it doesn't have any obvious complications: as my analysis of every Wordle answers shows, four of the letters are very common, while the outlier, M, still ranks 16th overall and 10th when used at the start of an answer.
Unlike with yesterday's ETHER (see below) it doesn't contain a repeated letter, either, and nor is it a tricky ER word.
So what's the problem? Well, firstly there is no problem as such, because 3.9 is around the average for Wordle, so it doesn't qualify as either hard or easy – it's smack bang in the middle. But as to why it's not easier still, my guess is that are two factors.
One is start words: PLANE with 18 and LEAST with 26 were the only two of WordleBot's top 20 openers to dip below 50, which is a pretty uncommon occurrence. And seeing as neither of those two are played by that many people, they won't have changed the average at all. STARE, which is played by lots of people, left 248, while SLATE was at 98.
Second, people may have been led astray by LEMON and FELON, which were both played in fairly large numbers today. Indeed, that's what happened to WordleBot, which could only score a 4/6 itself after guessing the first of those words on its third attempt.
That meant that I once again beat the 'bot, scoring a three thanks to an incredibly lucky (or inspired?) second guess. My random opener was SPOUT, which unfortunately gave me only a single yellow O and which left 330 words open to me. Not great.
Mindful of the almost-ever-present danger of an ER word, I went with LONER next: it used the four most common letters left in the game bar A and I, which I didn't need as I already had one vowel and definitely wanted E in there.
LONER gave me three more yellows, which meant I had a near anagram to solve. I soon realized the only solutions to it were FELON or MELON – so I couldn't score lower than a four. I deliberated for a while and eventually decided to go with MELON, simply because I love the juicy fruit (and have never been a FELON, of course). Seemed as good a reason as any! And I got lucky, with all five letters turning 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 #1084, Friday 7 June: MELON
- Wordle #1083, Thursday 6 June: ETHER
- Wordle #1082, Wednesday 5 June: ORGAN
- Wordle #1081, Tuesday 4 June: GROOM
- Wordle #1080, Monday 3 June: STARK
- Wordle #1079, Sunday 2 June: BRAVO
- Wordle #1078, Saturday 1 June: BASIN
- Wordle #1077, Friday 31 May: CHAOS
- Wordle #1076, Thursday 30 May: GUMMY
- Wordle #1075, Wednesday 29 May: PAPAL
- Wordle #1074, Tuesday 28 May: MINUS
- Wordle #1073, Monday 27 May: SKIER
- Wordle #1072, Sunday 26 May: BEVEL
- Wordle #1071, Saturday 25 May: TITAN
- Wordle #1070, Friday 24 May: GLIDE
- Wordle #1069, Thursday 23 May: SWISH
- Wordle #1068, Wednesday 22 May: EXALT
- Wordle #1067, Tuesday 21 May: DINGO
- Wordle #1066, Monday 20 May: NICER
- Wordle #1065, Sunday 19 May: HITCH
- Wordle #1064, Saturday 18 May: BRINY
- Wordle #1063, Friday 17 May: TUTOR
- Wordle #1062, Thursday 16 May: STALL
- Wordle #1061, Wednesday 15 May: PINCH
- Wordle #1060, Tuesday 14 May: AMASS
- Wordle #1059, Monday 13 May: CUMIN
- Wordle #1058, Sunday 12 May: OUTER
- Wordle #1057, Saturday 11 May: TIDAL
- Wordle #1056, Friday 10 May: MEDIA
- Wordle #1055, Thursday 9 May: JERKY
- Wordle #1054, Wednesday 8 May: PIOUS
- Wordle #1053, Tuesday 7 May: MUSTY
- Wordle #1052, Monday 6 May: SHAVE
- Wordle #1051, Sunday 5 May: DECAL
- Wordle #1050, Saturday 4 May: VALUE
- Wordle #1049, Friday 3 May: EBONY
- Wordle #1048, Thursday 2 May: SLICE
- Wordle #1047, Wednesday 1 May: DIARY
- Wordle #1046, Tuesday 30 April: PROWL
- Wordle #1045, Monday 29 April: CRAFT
- Wordle #1044, Sunday 28 April: PRUNE
- Wordle #1043, Saturday 27 April: GLEAM
- Wordle #1042, Friday 26 April: VAPID
- Wordle #1041, Thursday 25 April: INTRO
- Wordle #1040, Wednesday 24 April: OVERT
- Wordle #1039, Tuesday 23 April: ROVER
- Wordle #1038, Monday 22 April: LASER
- Wordle #1037, Sunday 21 April: JOLLY
- Wordle #1036, Saturday 20 April: LUCID
- Wordle #1035, Friday 19 April: RAISE
- Wordle #1034, Thursday 18 April: FACET
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.