NYT Wordle today — answer and hints for game #999, Thursday, March 14
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 #999) – 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 #999) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #999) – 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 #999) – 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 #999) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #999.
- Today’s Wordle answer has happened after a time.
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 #999)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SLICE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: DICEY (5)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #999) is… SINCE.
Today marks an anniversary of sorts for Wordle – because it’s the 1,000th game! Yes, I know it’s officially #999, but the first puzzle, on Saturday, 19 June 2021, was designated #0, so really we should be celebrating today. That’s not the way the world works, though, so I imagine most people will consider tomorrow to be the big day. Anyway, so as to fit in with convention, I have some articles planned for tomorrow to mark the occasion. Watch out for those.
SINCE is not a particularly notable Wordle for any other reason. It’s packed with common letters in a nice, straightforward format and with no pesky duplicates to trip you up. In fact, given that S is the most common starting letter in the game and E the most likely to find at the end, it should be no great shock that SINCE is among the easier Wordles we’ve had recently. WordleBot says it has an average score of 3.6, and frankly I’m surprised it’s not lower than that.
It certainly didn’t cause me any problems; in fact, it gave me my first 3/6 since EARLY last Friday. Much of the credit to that should go to my start word, DICEY, which gave me one of the best results I’ve had since switching to a random opener at the start of 2024.
DICEY gave me a green I plus yellow C and E, and left only five possible solutions. But even that wasn’t the best result today, given that SLICE left only one answer. Other successes among WordleBot’s top 20 openers included SAINT (7), TRICE (5) and SANER (3), while CRANE was only a little behind them at 11.
I didn’t know for sure that there were only five options to find, but I came to the same conclusion as the ‘bot anyway, coming up with WINCE, MINCE, SINCE, NIECE and PIECE. All I needed to do, then, was find a word that would point me in the direction of the answer and guarantee me a 3/6 – and that word was SINEW. If the N turned yellow, the answer would be NIECE. If it turned gray, it would be PIECE. If green, it could be either of the other three – so the S and W were included in order to choose between them.
With the N and S both turning green, I knew it had to be SINCE, so played that next for a 3/6. See you tomorrow for #1,000.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #998)
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #998, 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 L.
L is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter in Wordle. Despite being the sixth most common letter overall, it’s only ranked 12th at the beginning of a word.
- 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 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 #998.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is near to you.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #998)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: LEAST (10 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: RIDER (626)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #998) was… LOCAL.
Another day, another Wordle with a repeated letter and an average score of around the 4.0 mark. In fact, WordleBot says this one is exactly at 4.0, meaning it’s a tiny bit easier than yesterday’s HEAVE (see below).
That doesn’t surprise me, because unlike yesterday’s game, LOCAL only contains common letters, a fact which alone should be enough to make it more solvable. But on the flip side, the absence of an E among those letters slightly reduced the effectiveness of many popular start words; although LEAST cut down the options to 10, most of the other top choices were in the 30-50 range (CRANE, 37, or CRATE, 32) or far higher still (SLATE, 75, and STARE, 191).
It’s an unremarkable Wordle overall, save for the fact that it starts and ends with the same letter. But even this is not hugely notable, given that 92 of Wordle’s original 2,309 solutions have that format. We had one only a week ago, in the form of HUNCH.
It was, however, a notable game for me – because it marked my 800th consecutive Wordle without a loss. I have to caveat this slightly; my official streak was lost a year or so ago, when I was on holiday and the NYT Games app failed to cope with the idea that my time zone might have changed by an hour. It’s ridiculous that something so simple could trip it up, but there you go. Anyway, I’m still considering it a streak, because as anyone who reads this column knows, I’ve played the game every day and beaten it every day. Well, unless I’m cheating of course, but you’ll have to trust me on that.
If I were cheating (I’m not), I’d have played today’s game better than I did. My starter word was RIDER, which could have been a very good choice (“decent”, said WordleBot) but which was very unlucky today and which left me 626 possible solutions. I followed up with TALON, which cut them to 12, then started thinking properly.
Or at least I should have done. In reality, I came up with ALOUD fairly early on and, without paying attention, played it. What. An. Idiot. Obviously the answer couldn’t be ALOUD, because the D had been ruled out on the first guess.
This is the kind of mistake I never used to make, but that I seem to be regularly subject to now that I’m starting with a random word each day. Must. Do. Better.
Fortunately, it didn’t hurt me. I saw that LOCAL, FOCAL, VOCAL, LOYAL and OFFAL were all options, and decided to play LOCAL in order to establish where the L went. Sure, I might ended with a 50/50 between FOCAL and VOCAL, but that was a risk I could take. I needn’t have worried, because all five letters turned green and I escaped with another 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 #998, Wednesday 13 March: LOCAL
- Wordle #997, Tuesday 12 March: HEAVE
- Wordle #996, Monday 11 March: PESKY
- Wordle #995, Sunday 10 March: GRASP
- Wordle #994, Saturday 9 March: CHEER
- Wordle #993, Friday 8 March: EARLY
- Wordle #992, Thursday 7 March: CLONE
- 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
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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