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 #1233) - 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 #1233) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it's the third most common overall, behind only S and C.
Wordle hints (game #1233) - 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 #1233) - 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 #1233) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1233.
- Today's Wordle answer is to burn intensely.
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 #1233)
- NYT average score: 4.9
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SLATE, PLATE, PLACE (14 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: FLECK (41)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Today's Wordle answer (game #1233) is… BLAZE.
We really have had lots of very tough Wordles lately, and BLAZE appears to be up there with the hardest of them. According to WordleBot, which analyzes the games of everyone who plays, it is currently being solved in an average of 4.9 guesses – equal with WREAK a week ago and a full guess above the 3.9 figure that marks the midway point for Wordle.
There are two reasons why it might be causing people trouble, one obvious and one less so. To take the former, it contains a Z. As my analysis of every Wordle game shows, Z is the fourth least common letter in Wordle, and only appears 40 times among the 2,309 original solutions. It's not a letter that appears in many (any!) of the best start words, and it's not one that most people would play early on.
The second factor is that the -LA-E format is the fourth most common in the game for those three letter placings, behind only -RA-E, -RI-E and -RO-E. From the likes of PLACE and PLATE to GLARE and GLADE, FLARE and FLAKE and SLATE, there are 15 such words to be found. But most problematic of all here are the B words: BLAME and BLADE and BLARE and BLASE (if you allow it without the accent), plus BLAZE itself.
BLAZE was actually the third most frequently played answer on the third guess, behind BLAME and BLADE, and though it became the most common on the fourth guess, fully 30% of Wordlers went with one of those two words at that stage too. People clearly had difficulty picking the right one.
The key was to rule in or out the likely consonants early on, something I managed on the third guess. But WordleBot wasn't particularly impressed with my work, awarding me only 83/99 for skill. However, I think its logic was skewed and that it was unfairly harsh on me; I'll be interested to see if you agree.
I'd started well enough, with FLECK cutting my options to 41. Those -LA-E words were inevitably the best to open with today, with SLATE, PLATE and PLACE all leaving only seven possibles.
For my second guess I tried to rule in/out some of those letters that could go before the L – in this case B and G – while placing my yellow E at the end of the word, and including one consonant that could go before it: D.
BUDGE was my choice, and it worked well. It cut my shortlist to four: the aforementioned BL words BLAME, BLAZE and BLAME, plus BLASE, which wasn't on my list due to the absence of that accent. It was on the 'bot's list, I think wrongly, which goes some way to explaining why it thought my guess was only worthy of a 70 skill score.
ROOMY ruled out BLAME and BLARE, so left me with BLAZE or perhaps BLASE. I went with the Z option rather than the accent-less S one, and scored a four that I think was more impressive than the 'bot did. Not that it really matters of course. I'm not so shallow that I really care what a piece of code thinks of me. Honest!
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1232)
In a different time zone where it's still Saturday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1232, 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 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 P.
P is a middling end letter in Wordle. It features in 56 answers, which places it 12th in the alphabet. Don't expect it to happen that often compared to the likes of E, Y and T.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1232.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is to spy or pry.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1232)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SNARE (7 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: PRISM (48)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1232) was… SNOOP.
This is our third OO answer in the past two weeks, which is an unexpected occurrence given that there are only 58 of them among the game's 2,309 original solutions. By that measure you'd only expect one every 40 Wordles, so to get three in quick succession is improbable.
That said, these OO answers have been underrepresented in the first 1,232 Wordles. Prior to yesterday, there have been 25 of them, including one (KAZOO, #730) that wasn't in the original list. You'd expect to have had 31 of them by now, so they'll be more frequent than was initially forecast in the second half of Wordle's lifetime.
That upsets me, because I always struggle with them. I have a record of my scores for 24 of those 26 games (including yesterday's), and they've yielded a sole 2/6, a sole 3/6, 14 4/6s, six 5/6s, one 6/6 and one fail. That last one was played via the Wordle Archive, rather than 'live' (as were a few of the others), but even setting that aside the pattern is clear: I very rarely score better than a four.
That same fate befell me yesterday, although there's no major shame attached to that – because the overall average according to WordleBot is exactly 4.0 too. However, I did have a decent start, with my random opener PRISM cutting my options to 48. CRANE, meanwhile, was at 81, SLATE at 71 and STARE at 80 – so I outperformed those popular starters and possibly should have done better here.
With a yellow P and S already in play, I had a strong hunch as to what format the answer might take. Or rather, which three formats it might take. One was SP---, which gave me the likes of SPOOL, SPOUT, SPOOF, SPAWN, SPATE and SPACE. One was S--P-, for SLOPE, SHAPE, SCOPE, SOAPY and SLEPT. And finally there was S---P, for SWOOP, SLEEP, SHEEP, SCOOP and SLOOP.
I decided to narrow things down by playing SCOPE, because the other letters – C, O and E – were very common among my shortlisted words. This was a decent attempt, but not great; WordleBot awarded me 75/99 for skill, and said CLEAT would have been better. The 'bot may well have been right in theory, but both words had the same effect, which was to cut my shortlist from 48 to nine.
I found all nine answers independently, and focused next on finding a word that would rule out nine of them, and guarantee me a four. I couldn't find one that would be quite that helpful, but established that FLINT was my best bet; this would leave me a 50/50 if the answer was SWOOP or SPOOK, and also one if it were SPOON or SNOOP. However, I knew SPOON had been a past Wordle answer because it appeared only a few weeks ago (game #1,220).
WordleBot agreed with my choice of FLINT, and it worked perfectly – cutting my answers list to two. And as it happened those two were indeed SPOON or SNOOP. With the former ruled out I was able to play the latter and scored a 4/6.
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 #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
- Wordle #1184, Sunday 15 September: RECUR
- Wordle #1183, Saturday 14 September: BROAD
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.
