A Wordle streak is a point of pride for a lot of players across the globe and while a high score is nice, it's the cherry on top of onward progress. So there's some understandable concern blazing through social media right now because today's Wordle answer (#1,244, Thursday, November 14) is a very tough nut to crack.
In fact, our resident Wordle player here at Tom's Guide has gone as far as calling today's puzzle one of the hardest of 2024 so far. So it's not surprising many people may see their streak come to an end today. To quote Obi-Wan Kenobi, it's as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
The in-game AI helper tool WordleBot analyzes your game after you've played it and it does the same for everyone else. According to the bot, the average player completes puzzle #1,244 in 4.9 moves in easy mode, or 4.5 if playing by hard rules. Which, actually, isn't that high (puzzle #454 back in September '22 has a score of 6.3) — so what's going on?
Warning: Spoiler ahead!
If you've carried on reading, I'm going to assume you're happy to know the answer to today's Wordle score. It's UVULA.
Right? Me neither.
It may sound like a made-up word but it does actually mean something. I had to Google it, but according to WebMD it's "that soft flap of tissue that looks like a droplet at the back of your mouth".
The answer starts with UVU which you would only find in very few other words, and actually having two letter U's in the answer is extremely rare. Enough to stump even hardcore players. Not to mention that most people probably won't ever have even heard of it.
The social media meltdown
As you'd expect, there's a lot of worry on social media — so much so that #Wordle1244 is trending on X.com.
Plenty of players aren't happy with today's answer and commentators have pointed out that the recent crop of Wordle answers have been very difficult.
Wordle 1,244 6/6What is the name of Christ is that word?! #Wordle#Wordle1244⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 pic.twitter.com/mbAyPh0h4RNovember 14, 2024
I think Wordle 1,244 is going to blow a lot of streaks. #Wordle #Wordle1244November 14, 2024
Close to losing my streak 😱#Wordle1244 1,244 5/6⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 pic.twitter.com/NqW6zbuwvBNovember 14, 2024
It's not hard to see why, as the game has been running for a few years now and most of the easy words have been used up.
It stumped the Tom's Guide team
The effect of today's puzzle was also felt around Tom's Guide HQ with many of our team falling foul and losing their hard-won streaks. Here's what some of my Wordle-playing colleagues had to say about it.
"I play the Wordle every morning without fail and I'd like to think I've got it down to a fine art, so when I found myself 5 guesses down with only 3 yellow tiles in the bag this morning, I sincerely felt a little wronged by the NYT, our Homes editor, Millie Fender told me. "It turns out that little dopamine hit of getting the Wordle is crucial to starting my day off right. I treated myself to a latte as a consolation prize."
Meanwhile, one of our review writers, Nikita Achanta, also suffered a streak-ending result.
"It was a 45-day streak so I was quite sad, and I feel like Wordle has been quite hard these past few days — today's was just the nail in the coffin," she said. "I've only ever lost my streak twice; hopefully never again."
However, one team member did get it. Alix Blackburn, our resident streaming writer, was up to the task. She said, “I don’t play Wordle, but I got the hardest word in four guesses.” What a flex.
If you were one of those who lost their streak through today's puzzle then commiserations. But pick yourself up, dust yourself down and we'll see you tomorrow to begin anew.
