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 #1235) - 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 #1235) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1235) - 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 #1235) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Wordle hints (game #1235) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1235.
- Today's Wordle answer is a specific number of people.
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 #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
Today's Wordle answer (game #1235) is… 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.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1234)
In a different time zone where it's still Monday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1234, 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 V.
V is a fairly uncommon starting letter in Wordle. There are only 43 answers that begin with a V, and it ranks just 16th.
- 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 L.
L is a really common letter to find at the end of a Wordle. There are 155 games that finish with an L, and it ranks as the fifth most likely letter there.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1234.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is a format for music.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1234)
- NYT average score: 4.1 (revised)
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 4
- Best start word performance*: PLANE (11 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: ELIDE (62)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1234) was… VINYL.
Ah, the crackle and pop of a vinyl record spinning through a classic album, guaranteed to make me feel warm and fuzzy on a cold November evening. But the five letters of VINYL on a cold November morning… well, that's a different matter entirely. For all that I love the medium, I'm less fond of the Wordle answer, which provided me with an opportunity to make a big and very stupid mistake – one which I grasped firmly with both hands.
It is, admittedly, another difficult Wordle. It has an average score of 4.2 at the time of writing (note – revised down to 4.1), and two complications; the V at the start and the Y near the end.
To take the first, V is the fifth least common letter in the game, ahead of only Z, X, Q and J. And for the second, Y is very, very unlikely to appear where it does today.
As my analysis of every Wordle game shows, Y appears 424 times in total, making it the 12th most common letter in the game. However, in 364 of those answers it appears at the end of the word. In fourth position, as it is today, it only occurs three times! POLYP (game #778) is the other one to have appeared so far, which means there's one more lurking out there still. And no, I don't know what it is.
None of that should have stopped me scoring a three. My opening word was not too bad; ELIDE left me with 62 possibles, which was better than CRANE (81) and STARE (321) and which set me up nicely for my second guess. I had a yellow I and L to place, and figured that combining them with T, R and A for TRAIL would be a good approach.
Indeed, it was both a good guess and a lucky one, cutting my shortlist to a single word according to WordleBot. The trouble was, in my head I had two options still: VINYL and IDYLL. The keen-eyed among you will have spotted that it couldn't have been the latter, because D had already been ruled out. But somehow that detail had escaped me, so I played IDYLL first then VINYL next for my 4/6. It was only when I checked WordleBot afterwards that I realized my error.
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 #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
- Wordle #1185, Monday 16 September: HONEY
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.
