NYT Wordle today — answer and hints for game #992, Thursday, March 7
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, which remains the best of all the main Wordle alternatives.
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 #992) – 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 #992) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is C.
C is a very common starting letter in Wordle – in fact, it’s the second most common of all, behind only S.
Wordle hints (game #992) – 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 #992) – 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 #992) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #992.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a facsimile.
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 #992)
- NYT average score: 3.3
- My score: 2
- WordleBot’s score: 2
- Best start word performance*: CRANE and PLANE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: BONGO (70)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #992) is… CLONE.
A second easy Wordle in row makes for a happy start to the day for millions of Wordlers. The NYT’s WordleBot helper tool says this one has an average score of 3.3, making it the joint easiest so far in 2024. Yes, I know I said yesterday that TEARY (see below) had an average of 3.2, but that ended up with a 3.4 rating once everyone had finished playing.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out why it has such a low score; CLONE contains five very common letters, starts with the second most common starting letter and ends with the most common ending letter. What’s more, it’s a very similar word to CRANE, WordleBot’s favorite opener, and one which was used by more than 1% of players today. Given that it left those 1% of Wordlers with only one possible solution, there will have been plenty of 2/6s on the cards.
Indeed, that’s the score I got too – but I had my luck on the second guess rather than the first. My random opener was BONGO, which is a pretty terrible starter word in general and which left me with 70 options today. What happened next was one of the most fortunate guesses I’ve ever had – though there was some skill involved too, or at the very least some amount of reasoning.
Here’s how my brain worked: I already had yellow O and N, and wanted to include them both in my second word. I needed a vowel – and E was the sensible choice. Putting it at the end, with the O and N before it, also made sense; so, –ONE.
What could those first two letters be? Well, two consonants, probably (although it could have been ALONE or ATONE, among others). The most common consonants are T and R, but neither TRONE or RTONE are words. After that comes L – but again, TLONE, RLONE and other combinations didn’t work.
Next up was S – and I very nearly played STONE. But I decided that C was a more versatile letter, and instead went with CLONE. The rest, as they say, is history.
Obviously I didn’t expect it to be the answer; I was merely playing the odds in order to have the best chance of a 3/6. But I score a two rarely enough (five so far in 2024) that they’re always welcome, so I’ll gladly accept my good fortune. And prepare for a much more difficult game tomorrow, of course…
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #991)
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #991, 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 T.
T is one of the most common starting letters in the game, beginning 149 of Wordle’s 2,309 answers. That gives it a ranking of fourth in the alphabet, behind only S, C and B.
- 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 Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #991.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer feels like crying.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #991)
- NYT average score: 3.4
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: TRACE and TRADE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: TEDDY (4)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #991) was… TEARY.
If yesterday’s game (see below) was one of the hardest so far in 2024, then TEARY is one of the easiest. In fact, it represents one of the biggest swings we’ve ever seen, with 1.9 guesses difference between the two games [NB: TEARY was upgraded to 3.4 by the end of the day, so the swing wasn’t quite so big]. That’s not quite up there with the PARER (6.3) / CHUTE (3.5) swing in September 2022 (2.8 on that occasion), but it’s still enough to leave your head swimming with the unpredictability of it all.
There are two reasons for its easiness. Firstly, four of the five letters are very common overall, and the other one, Y, is very, very common at the end of a Wordle answer. And secondly, some of the best start words performed incredibly well today. TRACE and TRADE each only left one answer – and therefore a guaranteed 2/6 – while the likes of STARE and CRATE (2), SLATE (8) and CRANE (9) were all pretty special too.
Even my random word got in on the action. TEDDY didn’t look like a particularly lucky choice, given those repeated Ds, but the T, E and Y all turned green, and that meant I only had four words to pick from.
I came up with them easily enough: TEARY, TESTY, TEENY and TERRY, although I also jotted down TELLY and TECHY as possibles. Rather than guess one of them, I did what I usually do in this scenario and played a word which couldn’t be right but which would (hopefully) guarantee me a 3/6. It’s not the best option if you’re one of those people who craves the glamor of a 2/6, but it’s a lot safer – and I’m nothing if not a play-it-safe kind of person.
The word I chose was CLEAN – because if TECHY had been the answer (and Merriam-Webster dictionary says it is a word) then I needed the C in there. The L would have indicated TELLY. The E in the middle was for TEENY, the A for TEARY, the N for… well, nothing, actually. With hindsight I should have played CLEAR in order to indicate TERRY – without it, I could have faced a 50/50 between TERRY and TESTY on the next guess.
That was a mistake on my part, then, but it didn’t count against me, because the A turned yellow and I therefore knew it had to be TEARY. I played that next for a WordleBot-beating 3/6.
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 #991, Wednesday 6 March: TEARY
- Wordle #990, Tuesday 5 March: HUNCH
- Wordle #989, Monday 4 March: FLAME
- Wordle #988, Sunday 3 March: STATE
- Wordle #987, Saturday 2 March: URBAN
- Wordle #986, Friday 1 March: FORTY
- Wordle #985, Thursday 29 February: IMAGE
- Wordle #984, Wednesday 28 February: DEVIL
- Wordle #983, Tuesday 27 February: SENSE
- Wordle #982, Monday 26 February: OFTEN
- Wordle #981, Sunday 25 February: SMITH
- Wordle #980, Saturday 24 February: PIPER
- Wordle #979, Friday 23 February: APART
- Wordle #978, Thursday 22 February: HEAVY
- Wordle #977, Wednesday 21 February: BUILD
- Wordle #976, Tuesday 20 February: MATCH
- Wordle #975, Monday 19 February: PRICE
- Wordle #974, Sunday 18 February: RIDGE
- Wordle #973, Saturday 17 February: PSALM
- Wordle #972, Friday 16 February: STASH
- Wordle #971, Thursday 15 February: ASCOT
- Wordle #970, Wednesday 14 February: TALON
- Wordle #969, Tuesday 13 February: SCRAM
- Wordle #968, Monday 12 February: PASTA
- Wordle #967, Sunday 11 February: NEVER
- Wordle #966, Saturday 10 February: FRIED
- Wordle #965, Friday 9 February: STIFF
- Wordle #964, Thursday 8 February: PLACE
- Wordle #963, Wednesday 7 February: AFTER
- Wordle #962, Tuesday 6 February: WHICH
- Wordle #961, Monday 5 February: REPEL
- Wordle #960, Sunday 4 February: VERGE
- Wordle #959, Saturday 3 February: MICRO
- Wordle #958, Friday 2 February: CLEFT
- Wordle #957, Thursday 1 February: ALIVE
- Wordle #956, Wednesday 31 January: BULKY
- Wordle #955, Tuesday 30 January: EXPEL
- Wordle #954, Monday 29 January: LEGGY
- Wordle #953, Sunday 28 January: EMBER
- Wordle #952, Saturday 27 January: SNAKE
- Wordle #951, Friday 26 January: ALOOF
- Wordle #950, Thursday 25 January: BLOCK
- Wordle #949, Wednesday 24 January: RELIC
- Wordle #948, Tuesday 23 January: STILL
- Wordle #947, Monday 22 January: TWEAK
- Wordle #946, Sunday 21 January: NORTH
- Wordle #945, Saturday 20 January: LARGE
- Wordle #944, Friday 19 January: THING
- Wordle #943, Thursday 18 January: STOLE
- Wordle #942, Wednesday 17 January: COURT
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.
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