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 #1224) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has 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).
Wordle hints (game #1224) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is F.
F is a very common starting letter in Wordle. It ranks seventh behind only S, C, B, T, P and A and overall there are 135 solutions that begin with this letter.
Wordle hints (game #1224) – 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 #1224) – 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 #1224) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1224.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a displeased expression.
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 #1224)
- NYT average score: 4.4
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CRANE (6 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: FREAK (11)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1224) is… FROWN.
Ah, it’s our old friend the too-many-answers Wordle, here to inflict streak-ending torment on the unwary. FROWN is one of five words with the -ROWN format, with the others being DROWN, CROWN, BROWN and GROWN, and some people may also have been sidetracked by FLOWN, FRONT, FROND or a few other near-neighbors.
That probably explains the high average score of 4.4, together with the fact that W is a pretty uncommon letter and that neither W nor F will have featured in many people’s start words today.
Neither myself nor WordleBot struggled at all with it, though, because we both got very lucky with our opening guesses and ended up with scores of 3/6. The ‘bot began with CRANE, as always, and that cut the list of possible answers to a mere six: BROWN, DROWN, GROWN, FROWN, GROIN and PRION.
Meanwhile my opener, chosen at random, was FREAK. This left 11 solutions, but was arguably even more helpful than CRANE, because it gave me the green F (and R) that ensured I wouldn’t get caught in the -ROWN trap.
Others were not so fortunate, with the likes of SLATE (314) and STARE (125) leaving a much larger pool of words to narrow down. Even once cut to a handful, those -ROWN words will have lurked among them to cause trouble.
In contrast, I was free to list as many FR words as I could, and came up with seven: FROWN, FRONT, FROND, FROST, FRILL, FRIZZ and FROTH. I missed FRUMP, FRITZ and FROSH, which I’m not too disappointed at myself for, but also – somehow – FRUIT. I have no idea how I did that.
I decided to play FRONT, because it would guarantee me a solve in four at the worst. Unknown to me, because I didn’t consult a past Wordle answers list today, FRONT had already been an answer, to game #79 back in the early days. That didn’t matter here, though: the O turned green and the N yellow, which meant it had to be FROWN.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1223)
In a different time zone where it’s still Thursday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1223, 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 B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and 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 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 #1223.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer likes to get its own way.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1223)
- NYT average score: 3.9 (revised)
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: TASER (26 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: RAPID (468)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1223) was… BOSSY.
Another day, another Wordle with a repeated letter. That’s three out of the previous four games, which is way above what you’d expect; as my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, only 748 of the 2,309 solutions on the original list contain one, which is around one in three. Then again, every game is a new one that takes no influence from what’s come before, so you should alway play for the possibility of a repeat, even if you hope there won’t be one.
BOSSY is a relatively tough Wordle, partly because of that repeated S but also due to the similarly spelled MOSSY and LOSSY. The SY ending actually occurs 19 times in total, so people may also have been sidetracked by the likes of MOUSY and NOISY, depending on how the letters fell for them. However, it’s not super-tricky; WordleBot says it has an average score of 4.0 (note: revised to 3.9), so slightly harder than usual, but nowhere near the 4.6 for yesterday’s GOOFY.
All of the letters are to some extent common in the game. B is the third most likely to start an answer (but 18th overall), while Y is the second most common at the end (but 13th overall). As most Wordlers will know by now, S is overwhelmingly the most likely to begin an answer, but it’s worth noting that it’s pretty common in fourth position too: only N and E occur more often there.
An extensive knowledge of Wordle letter probabilities didn’t help me much with my start word (and doesn’t help me much with life in general, sadly), given that my opener was RAPID, which contained no B, O, S or Y. That left me with 468 possible solutions – some way behind the total for TASER (26) and STARE (54), but not too far off CRANE (356).
I followed up, for the second day in a row, with STOLE – and duly cut my shortlist to nine. WordleBot said it was exactly what it would have chosen, which is always reassuring. Not that I put too much thought into it, beyond identifying the five most common remaining letters.
I didn’t know that there were nine left at the time, of course, because you can only use WordleBot once the game is over. But I came up with six of them myself: BOSSY, BONUS, BOGUS, FOCUS, MOSSY and MOUSY. BONUS seemed like a good choice, as it would have guaranteed a solve in four whatever happened. WordleBot agreed for a second time in succession, meaning this was one of those rare days in which I scored a 99 out of 99 for skill.
In my mind, BONUS cut my shortlist to one: BOSSY. However, as I said above the ‘bot had found three other words, BOSOM, BOSON and HOCUS, and as it turned out the first of those was still in play for the fourth guess.
In reality, then, I had a 50/50 here and could easily have ended up with a five. But luck smiled upon me and I guessed correctly for my 4/6.
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 #1223, Thursday 24 October: BOSSY
- Wordle #1222, Wednesday 23 October: GOOFY
- Wordle #1221, Tuesday 22 October: SHOUT
- 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
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.