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 #1189) – 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 #1189) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is S.
S is the most common starting letter in the game, featuring in 365 of Wordle’s 2,309 answers. In fact, it’s almost twice as likely to begin an answer as the next most common starting letter, C.
Wordle hints (game #1189) – 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 #1189) – 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 #1189) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1189.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a byproduct of burning.
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 #1189)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: PARSE (31 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SLIDE (46)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1189) is… SMOKE.
You might look at SMOKE and think, ‘Ah, there’s a nice, easy Wordle.’ But you’d be wrong. WordleBot says it has an average score of 4.1, and both myself and the ‘bot ended up with a four today.
That’s because the S—E format is incredibly likely; the most common starting/ending format in the game, with 74 examples across the original 2,309 solutions. So while lots of people will have started the game with a good first guess that gave them two green letters, they’ll still have struggled to narrow down the options.
In my case, my start word was SLIDE, and that left 46 possibles. STARE was at 32, and SLATE at 36. Those shortlists are still relatively, er, short – but the problem is that the three letters that sit in-between were varied. Vowel-wise, all five could have featured, including a repeated E (for instance SCENE). And on the consonants front, the letters that go after S are W, T, P, L, H, M, N and C. For the fourth letter, there were even more options – for instance V (STOVE, SHOVE), K (SMOKE, STOKE), P (SLOPE, SNIPE), R (SNARE, SHORE) and so on and on and on.
Good narrowing-down words were therefore essential; anyone guessing blindly will have had a nightmare today. My approach was to play ACORN next, as it ticked off lots more common letters. This had the desired effect, and cut my list to six words – STOKE, SMOKE, SPOKE, STOVE, SHOVE and SMOTE.
And then it got difficult. I looked for ages and couldn’t find a word that would guarantee me a 4/6. WordleBot later told me that VOMIT and KEMPT would have worked. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of them and instead played SMITH. This was guaranteed to rule out all answers except for one pair, STOKE and STOVE; if the answer was either of those, I’d still have a 50/50.
Fortunately that didn’t happen: I played SMITH and it pointed the way to SMOKE as the only remaining solution.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1188)
In a different time zone where it’s still Thursday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1188, 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 P.
P is a very common first letter among Wordle answers. It’s the fifth most common in the alphabet and begins 141 solutions in total.
- 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 S.
S is really not a common ending letter at all – mainly because Wordle generally doesn’t allow plurals. It’s the 15th most likely letter to appear at the end of an answer.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1188.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is to squeeze or exert force.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1188)
- NYT average score: 3.7
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: PARSE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: OCTAL (478)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1188) was… PRESS.
After four tough Wordles in a row, here’s a much more straightforward challenge. WordleBot says it has a global average of 3.7, which is a full guess below the score for Wednesday’s FULLY, and I doubt many people struggled to solve it.
That’s despite the fact that like FULLY it contains a repeated letter. As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, S is a reasonably likely letter to be repeated, with 49 of the game’s 2,309 original solutions containing more than one of them. The LL repeat in FULLY was actually more likely, although there’s not much in it.
Also like FULLY, there are a few other words with similar spellings: DRESS and CRESS if you change the first letter, several others if you change the first two (BLESS, CHESS) or first and last (FRESH, CREST).
However, there aren’t as many of those alternatives as there were yesterday, plus the letters used are generally much more common. For that reason, many of the most popular start words fared better here, for instance STARE left only 14, RAISE eight and ARISE seven. Between them, those three were played by around 10% of Wordlers, so that will have brought down the average.
They won’t have made it any easier if you started with something else, of course, but I still don’t think of this as a very hard word in general – and maybe that’s because of the way my own game went.
I started with OCTAL of all things, a word which I’m not sure I’ve ever used before but which drew a blank and left me a massive list of 478 possible answers. I thought for a while about what to play next, but couldn’t decide. I wanted to include I and E as the two most common remaining vowels, plus the three most common remaining consonants, S, R and N. I could have gone for RINSE, but that would have placed the R in an unlikely spot. Or I could have played SIREN, but I wanted the E at the end. So instead I went for NURSE.
Remarkably, that cut those 478 options to only three (as it happens, RINSE would also have left three, and SIREN five). Those three were PRESS, DRESS and FRESH, which meant I needed to play one of the first two next, because even if wrong it would guarantee me a 4/6. If I had gone for FRESH and it was wrong, however, I’d have had a 50/50 still.
So I played PRESS with my fingers crossed, and got lucky: it was correct, so I scored 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 #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
- Wordle #1153, Thursday 15 August: ACORN
- Wordle #1152, Wednesday 14 August: SHORE
- Wordle #1151, Tuesday 13 August: NEIGH
- Wordle #1150, Monday 12 August: SKIFF
- Wordle #1149, Sunday 11 August: SCONE
- Wordle #1148, Saturday 10 August: MEDIC
- Wordle #1147, Friday 9 August: OUNCE
- Wordle #1146, Thursday 8 August: SAUCY
- Wordle #1145, Wednesday 7 August: MACAW
- Wordle #1144, Tuesday 6 August: ANVIL
- Wordle #1143, Monday 5 August: ENSUE
- Wordle #1142, Sunday 4 August: LOWER
- Wordle #1141, Saturday 3 August: SCALE
- Wordle #1140, Friday 2 August: FLAKE
- Wordle #1139, Thursday 1 August: CHALK
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.