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? TechRadar’s Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at our NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for our 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 #1292) – 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 #1292) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is N.
N is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter. Only 37 games begin with it and it ranks just 18th in this regard.
Wordle hints (game #1292) – 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 #1292) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is E.
E is the most common letter to end a Wordle answer by far. That’s one of the reasons why many of the best start words, including SLATE, CRANE, CRATE and STARE, all end with one.
Wordle hints (game #1292) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1292.
- Today’s Wordle answer is boldness or courage.
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 #1292)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: CRANE (6 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: BANJO (175)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1292) is… NERVE.
And so 2025 starts as 2024 ended, with a Wordle that has an average score of 4.0. That’s just a little above the overall average for the game, and NERVE is indeed the kind of word that is a little harder to solve than you might wish for the night after New Year’s Eve, when your wits may not be at their absolute sharpest.
The repeated Es don’t help, but the inclusion of the V is arguably more of a problem. None of that will have mattered too much if you began today with CRANE, as WordleBot did. This is the ‘bot’s favorite opener of all, and it left a mere six words to chose from; a three was very much on the cards if you started with it too.
I had to settle for a four, after my opening BANJO left 175 options. I do love the sound of a banjo, but I didn’t much enjoy getting it here, due to the inclusion of the annoyingly uncommon J. Still, it gave me a yellow N, and I duly spent the next three guesses trying to work out where it went.
Next up for me was SCENT, which was chosen for its letters rather than any hunch I had that it used the right pattern for the answer. I was on the wrong track, though, and succeeded only in adding a yellow E to the mix. WordleBot told me afterwards that I still had 35 words left, but I didn’t have anywhere near that many on my list. In fact, I was focused almost entirely on the chance that it might be an ER word; I’d found NEWER, NEVER, UNDER, and INFER, and incorrectly assumed that there were many more waiting to be uncovered. In reality, that was all of them, and the more common pattern was the EN-ending (GIVEN, LIKEN, LIVEN, VIXEN, RIPEN, WIDEN and so on).
UNDER was therefore a “solid” guess rather than a great one, but it did reduce that shortlist from 35 to a trio of REIGN, NERVE and NERVY. I hadn’t thought of the first of those, though, so played the second on what I thought was a 50/50 and got lucky when it proved to be right.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1291)
In a different time zone where it’s still Tuesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1291, 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 L.
L is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter in Wordle. Despite being the sixth most common letter overall, it’s only ranked 12th at the beginning of a word.
- 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 R.
R is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – it’s actually the 4th most common there, behind E, Y and T.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1291.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a primate.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1291)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: TASER (6 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: ODDER (10)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1291) was… LEMUR.
What better way is there to finish 2024 than by beating both WordleBot and the global average by a full guess? Well, I suppose I could have scored a 1/6, as many, many Wordlers will have done yesterday (see below), but this will do for now.
I’m also delighted that the answer is LEMUR, because let’s face it they are very interesting creatures (and also incredibly cute). The fact that there are around 100 different types of them, pretty much all of which are only found on the island of Madagascar, is amazing. I remember reading about one of them, the aye-aye, in a sort of ‘child’s first nature book’ when I was very young, and being fascinated by its long, thin middle finger, which it uses to dig grubs out of trees. So, it’s a good word and a good Wordle and a good day for me. Hurrah!
It may not be a good day for everyone, because it has an average score of 4.0 – not super-high, but high enough that some people will presumably have scored fives and sixes here. Maybe there were even some failures; after all, it’s not an obvious word, and the UR ending is not common either (it occurs only nine times among the 2,309 original Wordle solutions).
My game was entirely trouble free, though. I began with ODDER – which could have been a disaster, given that the repeated D was very unlikely to help me – and ended up with a yellow E and green R. This was a much better result than if both have been green, because that would have meant I needed to solve a dreaded ER word. Instead, ODDER left me with only 10 possible answers.
I was almost as lucky on my second guess. I played STEAL, leaving out the R in order to include another letter and therefore give myself the best chance of a solve-in-three, and got my wish when that extra L turned yellow. WordleBot told me afterwards that I now had only one possible answer left, and though I didn’t know it for sure at the time, LEMUR was indeed the only solution I could find.
Happy New Year, everyone!
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 #1291, Tuesday 31 December: LEMUR
- Wordle #1290, Monday 30 December: STARE
- Wordle #1289, Sunday 29 December: MAMBO
- Wordle #1288, Saturday 28 December: DECRY
- Wordle #1287, Friday 27 December: GRAIN
- Wordle #1286, Thursday 26 December: AFFIX
- Wordle #1285, Wednesday 25 December: SHARE
- Wordle #1284, Tuesday 24 December: EAGLE
- Wordle #1283, Monday 23 December: SAUNA
- Wordle #1282, Sunday 22 December: BRAWN
- Wordle #1281, Saturday 21 December: BLADE
- Wordle #1280, Friday 20 December: FLASH
- Wordle #1279, Thursday 19 December: STRAY
- Wordle #1278, Wednesday 18 December: HEFTY
- Wordle #1277, Tuesday 17 December: SCOWL
- Wordle #1276, Monday 16 December: BOAST
- Wordle #1275, Sunday 15 December: FUNKY
- Wordle #1274, Saturday 14 December: DROOL
- Wordle #1273, Friday 13 December: BOXER
- Wordle #1272, Thursday 12 December: VYING
- Wordle #1271, Wednesday 11 December: PLUMB
- Wordle #1270, Tuesday 10 December: PATIO
- Wordle #1269, Monday 9 December: FLUNG
- Wordle #1268, Sunday 8 December: HYENA
- Wordle #1267, Saturday 7 December: HILLY
- Wordle #1266, Friday 6 December: SHOVE
- Wordle #1265, Thursday 5 December: ENDOW
- Wordle #1264, Wednesday 4 December: CRYPT
- Wordle #1263, Tuesday 3 December: SHAKY
- Wordle #1262, Monday 2 December: GUILE
- Wordle #1261, Sunday 1 December: MAUVE
- Wordle #1260, Saturday 30 November: DOGMA
- Wordle #1259, Friday 29 November: HIPPO
- Wordle #1258, Thursday 28 November: CHOCK
- Wordle #1257, Wednesday 27 November: SLANG
- Wordle #1256, Tuesday 26 November: WITCH
- Wordle #1255, Monday 25 November: BROWN
- Wordle #1254, Sunday 24 November: TWIST
- Wordle #1253, Saturday 23 November: JELLY
- Wordle #1252, Friday 22 November: PEARL
- Wordle #1251, Thursday 21 November: SPINE
- Wordle #1250, Wednesday 20 November: NICHE
- Wordle #1249, Tuesday 19 November: GOING
- Wordle #1248, Monday 18 November: FRAIL
- Wordle #1247, Sunday 17 November: TALLY
- Wordle #1246, Saturday 16 November: VISOR
- Wordle #1245, Friday 15 November: TACKY
- Wordle #1244, Thursday 14 November: UVULA
- Wordle #1243, Wednesday 13 November: PRIMP
- Wordle #1242, Tuesday 12 November: FLOWN
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.