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 #1221) – 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 #1221) – 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 #1221) – 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 #1221) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Wordle hints (game #1221) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1221.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a loud cry.
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 #1221)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SAINT (18 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: ARISE (103)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1221) is… SHOUT.
Only yesterday we had SPOON, a Wordle that began with the third most common opening combination in the game, SP. Today we have SHOUT, which starts with the second most common pairing, SH. Don’t be surprised if tomorrow’s answer is an ST word to complete the set…
Not only does SHOUT start with a common combo but it also has common letters throughout: O is the third most likely in the middle, T the third most likely at the end and S on its own is by far the most likely to begin an answer.
Put all that together and you have a Wordle that’s being solved in a mere 3.6 guesses on average. It’s not quite so simple as GRANT last Wednesday (3.4), but it’s the easiest since then. Of course how easy it is for you will have depended to an extent on what your start word was. WordleBot’s choice, CRANE, left a mammoth 356 possible solutions – whereas SLATE was at only 43.
My random choice, ARISE, is a popular opener with regular Wordlers, but it was only decent rather than exceptional today; it gave me a yellow S and left 103 words.
That S was destined for the start of the word, obviously, so I moved it there and added four of the most common remaining letters to make SCOUT. WordleBot suggested I would’ve been better leaving out the S and instead playing COUNT, but it wouldn’t have made much difference; that word would have left me three answers to choose from, SCOUT left four.
Those four were incredibly easy to come up with, obviously – you don’t have to be a genius to be able to slot H, N, P and T into a blank space to make SHOUT, SNOUT, SPOUT and STOUT. However, that then left me with a dilemma.
In recent games I have occasionally broken my previously self-imposed rule to never check a past Wordle answers list. I have received emails since then from readers criticizing me for doing so, on the grounds that it’s cheating or at least unfair. I’m torn on the issue – I get why some people don’t do it, but on the other hand there have now been more than 1,200 answers – it would be almost impossible for anyone to remember them all.
So I looked, and as it turned out, STOUT (game #65), SNOUT (#286) and SPOUT (#1169) had all been answers already, meaning SHOUT was the only possible solution. If I hadn’t consulted the list, I wouldn’t have known that and would instead have needed to play a narrowing-down word such as PHONE to point me in the right direction.
I could easily have done this, of course – I know how to narrow down options and I would have scored a four if I’d taken that route. But equally… why not just look at the list? Is it any different from just having a really, really good memory?
Anyway, I’m still torn and might go back to not looking, but today I looked and scored a three. Sorry!
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1220)
In a different time zone where it’s still Monday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1220, 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 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.
- 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 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 #1220.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a tool for eating.
Yesterday’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
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1220) was… SPOON.
I’ve said before that I hate double-O words, and yesterday’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 the SP aspect might have been part of yesterday’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 .
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 #1220, Monday 21 October: SPOON
- 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
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.