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 #1220) – 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 #1220) – 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 #1220) – 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 #1220) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is N.
N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it’s the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.
Wordle hints (game #1220) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1220.
- Today’s Wordle answer is an eating tool.
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 #1220)
- NYT average score: 3.7
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: PLANE (11 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: TRIPE (74)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1220) is… SPOON.
I’ve said before that I hate double-O words, and today’s game did nothing to improve my attitude towards them. Remarkably, I’ve never scored a 3/6 on any OO-word – they’ve all been fours, fives or sixes, other than one random two on ALOOF (game #951), which was solely down to my start word only leaving me two choices. It’s frustrating – I simply don’t appear to be able to pick them out early in the way that I can some common formats.
I say ‘common’, but in reality they’re still relatively unlikely. As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, there are 81 games out of the original 2,309 in which O appears more than once, which makes them very likely among repeat letters, but still rare enough to be annoying. My analysis article doesn’t include data on double-Os (but probably should), however I do have that info jotted down too, and two Os appear together 58 times in total. Only E and L, both at 59, are more likely in this regard, so I really should know by now to play for the possibility.
Tipping the difficulty balance the other way is the fact that this Wordle begins with S, the most common starting letter, and ends with N – which is seventh in this regard. SP, meanwhile, is the third most likely opening combination, behind ST and SH. That probably explains why today’s average is a mere 3.7, despite the repeat. It’s certainly easy than the previous few words.
I suspected that SP aspect might be part of today’s game as early as the first guess, when my random starter TRIPE gave me a yellow P but nothing more. This left me with 74 options, but my second guess of SCAMP cut that to only five, and pretty much confirmed that this was to be an SP word.
Those five were SPOON, SPOOF, SPOOK, SPOOL and SPUNK, according to WordleBot, but the latter was not on my list. The other four were, though, so I played FLUNG in order to narrow them all down and that pointed the way to SPOON for my four. Not a disaster, then, but I’m making a vow now to play O earlier on, in the hope that maybe one day I’ll score a three .
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1219)
In a different time zone where it’s still Sunday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1219, 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 D.
D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.
- 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 #1219.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is risky.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1219)
- NYT average score: 4.2
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: TRICE (5 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: INGOT (325)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1219) was… DICEY.
My experience with CORER and FIBER over the past week has made me so paranoid about ER words that I’m seeing them everywhere. They lurk on the edge of my vision during the day, I sense them under my bed at night… in fact, I think I feel one behind me right now. Well, I guess Halloween is coming up after all.
My renewed fear of them certainly came into play yesterday; I was worried about another one throughout, and missed the eventual answer as a result. It didn’t really harm my game, but it sure made it all a lot more stressful!
DICEY is hard enough without your imagination going into overdrive. WordleBot says it has an average score of 4.2 at the time of writing, meaning that this is the fourth hardest Wordle week ever, with only one game below 4.0.
It’s nowhere near as tough as CORER or FIBER of course, even if the word itself is not particularly common. There are no repeated letters here, for instance, and as it turned out it wasn’t an ER word at all.
In fact, it won’t have been that bad at all if you began with TRICE – which left only five possible solutions – CARET (7) or SLICE (10). CRANE, WordleBot’s favorite, wasn’t too far behind either, leaving only 21.
My random word today was INGOT, which could have been very useful on some days but which today only gave me a yellow I and which left 325 options. I figured it would be sensible to add some common letters in, so placed the I in the center – by far its most likely location – then added in S, L, C and E to make SLICE.
This was nearly perfect, said WordleBot (which would have gone for CARED instead) and though it didn’t turn any letters green, it did cut my shortlist to six in the ‘bot’s eyes. In mine there were only two, though: DICER and BICEP. The difference of opinion stemmed from the fact that for once I have started to consult my list of past Wordle answers and saw that CIDER and MEDIC (which were both on WordleBot’s list) had appeared before. I also ruled out DICED, because ED words are very, very unlikely.
And of course I missed DICEY entirely, which was due to the fact that I was so focused on DICER and the possibility that there might be another ER word I hadn’t spotted. Was CIFER a word? No, of course that’s spelled CIPHER. Was RICER a thing? Obviously not, so I finally convinced myself to play DICER and when the first four letters turned green thought I’d solved it. But the last one stayed stubbornly gray, so I had to play DICEY next (having again dismissed DICED) and solved it in four.
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 #1219, Sunday 20 October: DICEY
- Wordle #1218, Saturday 19 October: FIBER
- Wordle #1217, Friday 18 October: STINT
- Wordle #1216, Thursday 17 October: HALVE
- Wordle #1215, Wednesday 16 October: GRANT
- Wordle #1214, Tuesday 15 October: CORER
- Wordle #1213, Monday 14 October: GAMUT
- Wordle #1212, Sunday 13 October: PRONE
- Wordle #1211, Saturday 12 October: STAIN
- Wordle #1210, Friday 11 October: GUSTY
- Wordle #1209, Thursday 10 October: CARVE
- Wordle #1208, Wednesday 9 October: MOMMY
- Wordle #1207, Tuesday 8 October: JOINT
- Wordle #1206, Monday 7 October: FLOUR
- Wordle #1205, Sunday 6 October: LAGER
- Wordle #1204, Saturday 5 October: MINER
- 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
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.