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 #966) – 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 #966) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is F.
F is a very common starting letter in Wordle. It ranks seventh behind only S, C, B, T, P and A and overall there are 135 solutions that begin with this letter.
Wordle hints (game #966) – 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 #966) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is D.
D is a fairly common letter to end a Wordle answer: it’s the eighth most likely to be in that position in a solution.
Wordle hints (game #966) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #966.
- Today’s Wordle answer is cooked in oil.
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 #966)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #966) is… FRIED.
I don’t often talk about WordleBot’s brainpower in this column, because I’m conscious that not everyone who reads my words will have access to it. But I feel like today I have to call out some really bizarre reasoning by the NYT’s AI helper tool.
Before I get to that, though, a few words on FRIED itself. It’s a fairly standard Wordle, with an average score of 3.7 in that classic three-consonants-and-two-vowels format. Three of the letters are very common, and though the other two, F and D, are not in the top 10 overall, F is the seventh most likely to start an answer and D the eighth most likely to end one. So it’s all good on that front.
Few of the best Wordle starting words made major inroads to the number of remaining answers, but TRACE and CRATE (which left 25), CRANE (30) and TRADE (17) were quite helpful. Just outside of WordleBot’s top 20, TRICE and PRICE (7) and TRIED (4) were better still.
So what you have here is a straightforward Wordle without anything particularly notable about it. There were plenty of threes on offer if you got lucky or played really well, and I doubt many people failed entirely.
My game started badly but got a lot better. I had to settle for a 4/6, but don’t think I made any major mistakes. That’s not how WordleBot saw it, though.
I started with SPEED, another random opener with a repeated E in it. This was actually quite helpful, because one E turned green right away, and I therefore knew I could rule out there being a second one. I also had a green D, and that combination left me with 171 answers.
Now, here’s where WordleBot got weird. I played CLING next, because this is a word that has worked very well for me in the past and it contained lots of good letters. I only wanted one more vowel, and CLING enabled me to pair it with the very common C, L and N, plus a G as an extra option. There probably were better choices, but I was happy with it.
However, WordleBot awarded me only 28 for skill – which seems bizarre. What’s more, it gave me 0 for luck, despite the fact that it cut my options to only four. This is particularly odd, because it predicted that CLING would leave 27. So if it should have left 27, but it actually left four… surely that means it was lucky?
What’s more, WordleBot’s own suggestion, UNWED, left 116 options. All very strange, but maybe it has a virus or something…
Anyway, I now had only four words to choose from, and found three: DRIED, FRIED and TRIED. The other was IVIED, which backs up my theory that WordleBot was having a bad day because surely that won’t be an answer.
I could have guaranteed a 4/6 if I’d have played AFTER, but I decided to take a risk and went with TRIED instead. This gave me a chance of a 3/6, but also could have resulted in a 5/6. But life’s too short to always play it safe, eh?
TRIED was wrong, but I went with FRIED next and ended up with a 4/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #965)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #965, 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 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 F.
F is not a particularly common ending letter in Wordle. It only ranks 17th in this regard, and a mere 26 of the 2,000-plus original Wordle answers end in this letter.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #965.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is rigid.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #965)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #965) was… STIFF.
If I didn’t have WordleBot I’m really not sure I could predict how difficult people would find any given Wordle puzzle. On Tuesday, for instance, the answer was WHICH and the average score for that was 3.9. Today, the answer is STIFF and the average score is… 4.3.
That doesn’t make much sense to me. Both have repeated letters, F for STIFF and H for WHICH. Both have an I as the only vowel. But WHICH also has a W (uncommon) and a C, whereas STIFF has S and T – two of the most common letters overall, and the single most likely starting combination in the game. I’d have expected today’s answer to have been the easier by far.
There are multiple factors at play, of course, and a lot will depend on the performance of the best Wordle starting words. But it can’t be just down to that, because my opener was something of a shocker here, and I still got home in 3/6.
My hunch is that STIFF suffers by sharing its first three letters with too many other words. For instance, on guess #2, according to WordleBot, 4.4% of people guessed STICK, 3.3% went for STING and 2.5% played STINK. On guess #3, STILL was played by 10.1% of Wordlers and on guess #4, STILL, STICK, STING, STILT, STINK, STINT and STICH together accounted for 36% of all attempts.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to choose between those many STI– words, because I followed my opening ACORN (zero letters, 459 possible answers left) with STALE (three greens, one possible answer left).
Yes, I jumped from 459 to one in a single guess. The key was that I’d now ruled out the consonants N, L and C, which between them featured in all of those alternative words I listed above. STIFF was the only word left, so I played it next for a simple 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 #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
- Wordle #941, Tuesday 16 January: BLOND
- Wordle #940, Monday 15 January: LUNCH
- Wordle #939, Sunday 14 January: DOING
- Wordle #938, Saturday 13 January: HEARD
- Wordle #937, Friday 12 January: ROUTE
- Wordle #936, Thursday 11 January: BRIEF
- Wordle #935, Wednesday 10 January: THREW
- Wordle #934, Tuesday 9 January: LINER
- Wordle #933, Monday 8 January: FINAL
- Wordle #932, Sunday 7 January: STONY
- Wordle #931, Saturday 6 January: CABLE
- Wordle #930, Friday 5 January: LUNGE
- Wordle #929, Thursday 4 January: SCANT
- Wordle #928, Wednesday 3 January: TWIRL
- Wordle #927, Tuesday 2 January: AGING
- Wordle #926, Monday 1 January: MURAL
- Wordle #925, Sunday 31 December: SALTY
- Wordle #924, Saturday 30 December: THREE
- Wordle #923, Friday 29 December: CHILD
- Wordle #922, Thursday 28 December: LEARN
- Wordle #921, Wednesday 27 December: DAISY
- Wordle #920, Tuesday 26 December: PHONE
- Wordle #919, Monday 25 December: EVOKE
- Wordle #918, Sunday 24 December: GRACE
- Wordle #917, Saturday 23 December: SLOPE
- Wordle #916, Friday 22 December: TOUCH
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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