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 #1236) – 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 #1236) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1236) – 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 #1236) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Wordle hints (game #1236) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1236.
- Today’s Wordle answer is sincerely, truthfully.
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 #1236)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: STALE (12 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: AMPLY (39)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1236) is… TRULY.
This is our first sub-4.0 game since WEIRD nearly a week ago, but it’s only just below that mark; WordleBot says the average score is currently 3.9.
It’s a fairly standard game, with a little in the pros column and a little in the cons. On the former, all five letters are pretty common, with U and Y sitting just outside the top 10 at number 11 and 12 respectively and the other three all well inside it. And of course it’s a common word, certainly compared to yesterday’s OCTET.
On the flip side, there are a few similarly spelled words, though which ones you had to choose between will depend on which end of the puzzle you uncovered first. Some people ended up playing TRU words such as TRUCK, TRUTH and, um, *****, but in my case I had the LY bit at the end and was sidetracked by the likes of CURLY and BURLY.
Either way, it’s not too easy, not too hard. Start word performance was also middling, with CRANE leaving 66 and STARE 48, though SLATE was much better at 17. In my case I had 39 courtesy of AMPLY giving me those final two letters.
I didn’t attempt to find many possible answers at this stage, because I could see that there were lots of them, so instead went with the play-common-letters approach in the form of SOLID. I was careful to include an L in the middle spot, even though I already had a green one in the fourth position, to guard against an LLY answer; there are many of these, such as FULLY, BULLY, FOLLY, HOLLY, HILLY and BELLY, so it was important to rule that out (or in) as early as possible.
SOLID was also one of WordleBot’s top picks (second behind BOLUS) and it performed well, cutting my options to five. I found all of them – TRULY, BURLY, CURLY, NEWLY and WRYLY – through a process of trial and error, then played TRUCK in order to narrow them down. In a sense, there was nothing wrong with that approach – it was guaranteed to give me the answer in four – but the ‘bot pointed out afterwards that playing CURLY or BURLY would have ensured a four at worst too, while also giving me a chance of a three.
As it happened neither of those words were right, so I lost nothing by playing TRUCK. And indeed it gave me the TRU bit at the start that confirmed TRULY as the solution, so I scored a four for the sixth successive day.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1235)
In a different time zone where it’s still Tuesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1235, 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 O.
Vowels are generally less common than you’d expect at the start of a word, and O is only the 17th most likely letter to begin a Wordle answer.
- 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 T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1235.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a specific number of people.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1235)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CARET (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: HARDY (524)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1235) was… OCTET.
There are uncommon words, there are really uncommon words… and then there’s OCTET. Judging a word’s obscurity is sometimes a tricky thing, because what might seem obvious to me is potentially a word others have barely heard of – or vice-versa. This has happened plenty of times before, for instance with MANGA (game #1087), a word of which I’m well aware but which many others complained they’d never used or seen. Or BORAX (#662), which lots of people in the US knew, but which sailed right over my head.
To me, OCTET is nowhere near as obscure as BORAX, but I do have evidence that it’s an uncommon word all the same. To get an idea of these things I use a wonderfully geeky site called WordAndPhraseInfo, which maintains a frequency list of all words in the English language. OCTET is apparently the 50,454th most frequently used word in English, whereas BORAX is 42,934th and MANGA is 36,247th. Among more recent answers, yesterday’s VINYL is 9,905th, BLAZE is 8,202nd and SNOOP 18,281st. Even BAWDY, which I know some people said was very uncommon, is 23,461st.
Even setting aside its (possible) obscurity, OCTET is potentially challenging. It contains a repeated T, after all, plus a TET format at the end that is not found in a single other Wordle answer. And while the letters are all common, they’re really not where you’d expect them.
That could explain the relatively high average score of 4.1, but actually I suspect it would be higher than that if not for the success of the best start word, CRANE, which left only 21 answers.
I had far more words than that on my shortlist – because my random opener was HARDY, which left 524 options. Not good. So I did what I always do in these situations and looked at my list of the most common Wordle letters. With A and R ruled out, those were E, O, T, L, I and S, but I only wanted two vowels, so left out the I and went with STOLE.
It’s a simple strategy, but often very effective, and it sure was today: STOLE cut those 500-plus options to a mere nine. That was according to WordleBot, at least, but I had only five on my shortlist: TOKEN, OFTEN, TOTEM, OCTET and BEGOT. The four I missed were COMET, COVET, TEMPO and BENTO.
TOKEN was guaranteed to give me the answer among my quintet, and though I could have ended up with a 50/50 between a couple of those I’d missed, that didn’t happen. Instead, TOKEN gave me a yellow T and O, and a green E, and confirmed that OCTET had to be the solution.
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 #1235, Tuesday 5 November: OCTET
- Wordle #1234, Monday 4 November: VINYL
- Wordle #1233, Sunday 3 November: BLAZE
- Wordle #1232, Saturday 2 November: SNOOP
- Wordle #1231, Friday 1 November: SIXTH
- Wordle #1230, Thursday 31 October: WEIRD
- Wordle #1229, Wednesday 30 October: EASEL
- Wordle #1228, Tuesday 29 October: TUNIC
- Wordle #1227, Monday 28 October: BAWDY
- Wordle #1226, Sunday 27 October: SANDY
- Wordle #1225, Saturday 26 October: WREAK
- Wordle #1224, Friday 25 October: FROWN
- 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
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.