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 #1300) - 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 #1300) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is W.
W is a fairly average letter when it comes to starting an answer. There are 82 solutions that begin with a W, with means that it ranks 13th – so right in the middle of the alphabet.
Wordle hints (game #1300) - 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 #1300) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1300) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1300.
- Today's Wordle answer is a thin cracker or candy.
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 #1300)
- NYT average score: 4.9
- My score: 6
- WordleBot's score: 5
- Best start word performance*: TASER (30 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: LOAMY (334)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Today's Wordle answer (game #1300) is… WAFER.
It's only a couple of days since I spent several paragraphs talking about the inherent difficulty of ER answers in relation to CYBER and now here we are with a Wordle that's even tougher, 4.9 to that word's 4.6.
It isn't hard to see why, either: the two consonants in the first and third positions are generally the ones that determine how difficult an ER word is, and today they are the less-than-common W and F. Okay, F isn't exactly uncommon overall – it ranks 19th, so lower-middle is a fairer description – but it mainly appears at the start of a word (accounting for nearly two-thirds of its appearances).
W, meanwhile, is uncommon. Plus, the fact that those two letters are both included today, rather than one of the consonants being a far-more-likely T or S or L or C, makes matters worse.
I scored a six, my first for more than a month, but given that even WordleBot could only manage a five, I'm not too upset about that. Mostly I'm just glad I didn't fail. I don't think my streak was ever in doubt, as it happens, but I am annoyed at myself for slightly messing up my fourth guess.
I'd played well enough up to that point, following my now-traditional poor opener (LOAMY, in this case) with TASER. TASER was actually the best performing of the top 20 start words today, leaving 30 answers (mine left 334), so playing it second got me back on track.
I now had 21 words left, WordleBot told me later, and my next choice of PORCH cut those in half to 11. So far, so good: I knew it was an ER word, I knew there was an A in it, and I now knew there was no R repeated in the middle – thus ruling out the likes of CARER, RARER and BARER, all of which were on my list. It also removed my C- and P-words – CAPER, PACER, RACER, PAPER, PAGER and PAVER among them.
It still left a motley crew of Ws (WAGER, WAFER, WADER, WAVER), Ks (BAKER, FAKER), Gs (EAGER, GAZER) and combinations of those letters. And it left some that began with an R, including RAVER.
I thought WORKS was a good next guess, as it included both W and K, but those were the only two letters still in play out of the five, so it was wasteful. WordleBot suggested that GAWKY – which also added in a G – would have been more efficient, and it is entirely correct. My bad.
Still, WORKS was not a disaster, giving me the green W and leaving four words. These were WAGER, WAFER, WAVER and WADER, and I knew that if I played FUDGE next I would be sure to get the answer. When the F turned yellow that left WAFER as the solution, and I escaped with my streak intact on the hardest Wordle of 2025 so far.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1299)
In a different time zone where it's still Wednesday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1299, 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 D.
D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.
- 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 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 #1299.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is an early version of something.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1299)
- NYT average score: 3.7
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- Best start word performance*: TRADE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: HASTE (62)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1299) was… DRAFT.
An internal debate is raging within my brain about the rights and wrongs of using a past Wordle answers list. Today's game will not have helped matters.
Consulting such a list is not cheating, of that I'm sure. After all, these are past answers. Anyone with a photographic memory would immediately know them all, and you wouldn't accuse them of cheating. However, I know that not everyone uses one, and that therefore means that people who do have an advantage. An entirely reasonable advantage – but an advantage all the same. And I don't want to have an advantage.
Anyway, I gave in to temptation today and looked at a list, and it gave me a four that might otherwise have been a five.
DRAFT is not a particularly tough Wordle answer – average score 3.7, according to WordleBot – but it does share its final four characters with CRAFT and GRAFT. That inevitably will have led to some people picking the wrong one today – unless they looked at a list, because that will have shown that CRAFT was the solution to game #1045 in April last year.
I had a further complication, in that by the time I'd completed my second guess, TRAIL, I had four answers left: those three plus GRANT. I could have played a narrowing-down word and guaranteed myself a four at that stage, but I didn't want a four – I wanted a three. So I guessed GRAFT.
This was wrong, and in the worst way; if the G had turned green, I'd have known it was GRANT and would still have scored my four. But I was now staring at a possible five, courtesy of a 50/50 between DRAFT and CRAFT.
So, I Iooked at the list. Pandora's box open, I saw that CRAFT had indeed appeared before (as had GRANT, as it happened), and was able to play DRAFT for a four. And even now, I'm not sure how I feel about it all.
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 #1299, Wednesday 8 January: DRAFT
- Wordle #1298, Tuesday 7 January: ATLAS
- Wordle #1297, Monday 6 January: SPRIG
- Wordle #1296, Sunday 5 January: CYBER
- Wordle #1295, Saturday 4 January: RELAX
- Wordle #1294, Friday 3 January: CHEAP
- Wordle #1293, Thursday 2 January: CHOSE
- Wordle #1292, Wednesday 1 January: NERVE
- 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
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.
