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 #1204) – 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 #1204) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1204) – 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 #1204) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is R.
R is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – it’s actually the 4th most common there, behind E, Y and T.
Wordle hints (game #1204) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1204.
- Today’s Wordle answer works underground.
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 #1204)
- NYT average score: 4.2
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SANER (11 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: THETA (604)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1204) is… MINER.
Two ER words in week, then? And another difficult one, with an average score of 4.2. That’s a lot lower than Sunday’s RIDER, which was at 4.6, but then again that had a repeated letter in it, whereas MINER doesn’t.
The challenge here, as always with an ER word, is to narrow down the many, many options – because there are 141 of these answers. And to make matters worse, there are a multitude of different patterns to them. Most have a consonant-vowel-consonant format, sure, but those vowels could be any of the five, and those consonants could be almost any of the 26. Is it LINER? Or POKER? Or WAGER? Or METER? Does it have repeated letters, like RUDER or PARER? Does it start with a vowel, like ELDER or OWNER? The possibilities are… well, not endless, but many.
Identifying that it’s an ER word is the first task, and one that was certainly foremost in my mind once I got a yellow E on THETA, my random start word. So I played LOSER to see if my hunch was right, and it was; that reduced my shortlist from 604 to 46, so a big drop but I still had lots to do.
There was no way I was going to try to solve it with so many words to choose from, so instead I played DENIM next. You might wonder why I included the E in the second position given that it was already green in the fourth slot, but that was in case it was a word like NEVER or NEWER. The other four letters were all among the most common ones that I hadn’t yet played.
DENIM was a “terrific choice”, said WordleBot, and very successful – it gave me green N, yellow I and yellow M and reduced those 46 options to only one. That was MINER, and I played it next for my 4/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1203)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1203, 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 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.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1203.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer goes before a name.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1203)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: STALE (2 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SHOUT (82)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1203) was… TITLE.
This is about as easy as a Wordle answer containing a repeated letter can get. WordleBot says it has an average score of 3.8, which is below the overall average for the game – and far below the average for answers with repeated letters. I’ve crunched the numbers, and among the 915 games I have an average score for, the 255 containing a repeat have a score of 4.23 – against 3.95 overall. In that context, 3.8 is rather low.
Why would that be? Well, for one the repeated letter is T, which is both the fifth most common letter overall and the fifth most likely to be repeated. And for two, the other three letters – I, L and E – are all incredibly common in their own right.
Many people will play a start word containing two or three of those letters, and that made for some very good results today. SLATE has three of them and left only six possible answers, ditto STALE, which left only two. PLATE, SLICE and TRICE were all at or below 10, too, while STARE – at 24 – was not too bad either.
Me? Well I played SHOUT, which only had one of those letters and which left a rather higher pool of 182 words. To counter that, I drew on my knowledge of the frequency of letters within the game; for instance, I knew that if T isn’t at the end of an answer, it is next most likely to be at the start. The most likely letter to follow it there is R, while E is most likely to be at the end. That gave me TR–E, and adding I and C made TRICE. Simple.
TRICE was a “great choice”, said WordleBot. It confirmed both the T and E in their respective places, and gave me a yellow I too. In doing so, it left me only three words, TINGE, TILDE and TITLE.
Playing the first of those would have been silly, because if it was wrong it would still leave me a 50/50 between the other two. Playing either TILDE or TITLE, meanwhile, would guarantee me a solve in four at the worst. So I played TITLE reasoning that it was by far the more common word, and was rewarded with a 3/6.
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 #1203, Friday 4 October: TITLE
- Wordle #1202, Thursday 3 October: WAGON
- Wordle #1201, Wednesday 2 October: SHELL
- Wordle #1200, Tuesday 1 October: MODEM
- Wordle #1199, Monday 30 September: CLOUD
- Wordle #1198, Sunday 29 September: RIDER
- Wordle #1197, Saturday 28 September: BRAIN
- Wordle #1196, Friday 27 September: FAITH
- Wordle #1195, Thursday 26 September: THANK
- Wordle #1194, Wednesday 25 September: TORCH
- Wordle #1193, Tuesday 24 September: HANDY
- Wordle #1192, Monday 23 September: STEAM
- Wordle #1191, Sunday 22 September: TEACH
- Wordle #1190, Saturday 21 September: SEVEN
- Wordle #1189, Friday 20 September: SMOKE
- Wordle #1188, Thursday 19 September: PRESS
- Wordle #1187, Wednesday 18 September: FULLY
- Wordle #1186, Tuesday 17 September: BEAUT
- Wordle #1185, Monday 16 September: HONEY
- Wordle #1184, Sunday 15 September: RECUR
- Wordle #1183, Saturday 14 September: BROAD
- Wordle #1182, Friday 13 September: HARSH
- Wordle #1181, Thursday 12 September: BRASS
- Wordle #1180, Wednesday 11 September: AISLE
- Wordle #1179, Tuesday 10 September: REBEL
- Wordle #1178, Monday 9 September: DEBIT
- Wordle #1177, Sunday 8 September: DRAWN
- Wordle #1176, Saturday 7 September: OWNER
- Wordle #1175, Friday 6 September: RERUN
- Wordle #1174, Thursday 5 September: WIDEN
- Wordle #1173, Wednesday 4 September: STERN
- Wordle #1172, Tuesday 3 September: FAINT
- Wordle #1171, Monday 2 September: CAMEL
- Wordle #1170, Sunday 1 September: MUSHY
- Wordle #1169, Saturday 31 August: SPOUT
- Wordle #1168, Friday 30 August: KNAVE
- Wordle #1167, Thursday 29 August: FLUNK
- Wordle #1166, Wednesday 28 August: LITHE
- Wordle #1165, Tuesday 27 August: CROWN
- Wordle #1164, Monday 26 August: STAKE
- Wordle #1163, Sunday 25 August: SKATE
- Wordle #1162, Saturday 24 August: FILET
- Wordle #1161, Friday 23 August: LEECH
- Wordle #1160, Thursday 22 August: BRUTE
- Wordle #1159, Wednesday 21 August: MULCH
- Wordle #1158, Tuesday 20 August: DELAY
- Wordle #1157, Monday 19 August: METER
- Wordle #1156, Sunday 18 August: LANKY
- Wordle #1155, Saturday 17 August: STORM
- Wordle #1154, Friday 16 August: BRACE
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.