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 #1242) – 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 #1242) – 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 #1242) – 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 #1242) – 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 #1242) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1242.
- Today’s Wordle answer has moved through the air.
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 #1242)
- NYT average score: 4.2
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 5
- Best start word performance*: PLANE (3 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: LOATH (60)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1242) is… FLOWN.
Hands up if you were hoping for a too-many-answers game today? That’ll be none of you then. Unfortunately, that’s what you got in the form of FLOWN.
While FLOWN itself has only two very near neighbors in the form of CLOWN and BLOWN, there are in fact 10 Wordle answers that end in OWN. Most of the others are -ROWN words – think CROWN and BROWN and GROWN and FROWN – but there’s also KNOWN and SHOWN for a bit of variety.
FLOWN is the sixth of the 10 to appear so far. We had one, FROWN, very recently (game #1224 just over two weeks ago), plus CROWN back in August. You might have remembered those two without consulting a list of past Wordle answers, but well done if you recalled SHOWN from April 2022 or BLOWN from August of that year.
Forgetfulness was not a factor for WordleBot as such – because it doesn’t check a past answers list. That will have contributed to its score of 5/6 today, given that it played BLOWN on the fourth guess. That put it some way above the average for the game, which currently sits at 4.2; maybe many other players did look at a list.
I didn’t need to do that, because I got lucky with my third guess. To an extent, I also got lucky with my first, which was LOATH; this left 60 possible answers, compared to the 81 for CRANE or the 321 for STARE. I had a yellow L and yellow O, so moved them each one place to the right, then added three of the most common remaining letters and played CLOSE. This was a bit unlucky, said the ‘bot, but my fortune was about to change.
For the third guess I drew up a shortlist of possible answers. WordleBot said afterwards that there were 15 of them at this stage, and I came up with most of them; the likes of FLOOR and FLOUR, plus BLOOD, FLOOD, GLOOM, BLOOM and GLOOP, then FLOWN, BLOWN and PLONK.
I searched for ages for a word that would narrow them down, and decided that BROWN was the best; it couldn’t be right, but would rule out most of my answers. However, my logic was based on not having missed any words, and obviously I had. This could have come back to haunt me – for instance if the solution had been FLOWY or GLOWY I’d have had a 50/50 still.
For that reason WordleBot preferred FROND, but as it happened either would have done the trick and only left one word. In my case, BROWN ruled out the B and gave me the green W and N that left FLOWN as the only possible solution.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1241)
In a different time zone where it’s still Monday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1241, 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 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 C.
C is a fairly uncommon letter to end a Wordle answer – it’s only the 16th most likely to be found there.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1241.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is characterized by a calm attitude.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1241)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SLICE (4 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: PETTY (218)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1241) was… STOIC.
Here’s a nice, easy Wordle to start the week. It begins with the most common opening letter and the most common opening combination, contains three other letters that nestle high up in the overall frequency list, and is being solved in an average of 3.6 guesses.
As a word, it actually has an unusual format; it’s the only one of Wordle’s 2,309 original solutions to end in OIC. But that ST at the start, coupled with how common O, I and C are individually, was more than enough to counteract any complications stemming from the order of those three letters at the end.
It won’t have hurt to have kicked off your game with STARE – which left 22 answers – or STALE (25), but there were better results to be had elsewhere. TRACE left only 15, for instance, and SAINT seven – but SLICE, with four, was the best of the top 20.
PETTY doesn’t contain an S, or an I, or an O, or a C, so unsurprisingly it fared rather more poorly. I did get a yellow T out of it, at least, but it left me 218 words to navigate.
With a start like that I’d usually end up with a 4/6; my second guess will generally bring a high-hundreds tally down to below 10, and my third will confirm the eventual answer. But today I had incredible luck and needed only three. That was because I picked SAINT as my second word, and that duly cut my list to only a single solution.
Why did I chose SAINT? Well, I knew that I should play the T at the end, where it’s most common, and it made sense to include S at the start both because it’s so common there and also because it was very likely to be paired somewhere with that yellow T. With E ruled out, A and I were obvious choices, too, as was the common-everywhere N.
So, I played SAINT on my second guess and was left with a very simple task of uncovering STOIC on my third.
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 #1241, Monday 11 November: STOIC
- Wordle #1240, Sunday 10 November: INNER
- Wordle #1239, Saturday 9 November: SWELL
- Wordle #1238, Friday 8 November: READY
- Wordle #1237, Thursday 7 November: EVENT
- Wordle #1236, Wednesday 6 November: TRULY
- 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
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.