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.
Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief and has been obsessed with Wordle for more than two years. He's authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar and its sister site Tom's Guide, including a detailed analysis of the most common letters in Wordle in every position. He's also played every Wordle ever and only lost once and yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Wordle hints (game #1209) - 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 #1209) - 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 #1209) - 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 #1209) - 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 #1209) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1209.
- Today's Wordle answer is to cut into pieces.
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 #1209)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 2
- Best start word performance*: CARET, CARTE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: GENIE (202)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Today's Wordle answer (game #1209) is… CARVE.
This is a classic 'split' Wordle – by which I mean that it will divide players based largely on what their start word was. That's because some – notably CRANE (3), CRATE (2), TRACE (2), CARTE (1) and CARET (1), but also STARE (8) – made huge strides in narrowing down the possible solutions, while many others did not. Mine was one of the latter, with my random word GENIE leaving me with 202 options.
It's therefore not a hard Wordle if you began with one of those openers, but it is rather more tricky if you didn't. It contains a V, which is an uncommon letter, but also four common letters. It has several similarly spelled alternatives including the likes of BARGE and FARCE, but very few that differ by only one letter (CARTE being the obvious one). So, a real mixed bag.
After my unfortunate start I focused on turning a couple more letters yellow – or better still green – rather than trying to solve the Wordle outright. That meant leaving out the green E so I could find space for one more letter. My pick was ROAST, which WordleBot said was a great choice and which cut my answers to six.
I found three of these – CARVE, FARCE and AZURE – but not CADRE (maybe), PADRE (maybe) and BARRE (highly unlikely). Rather than risk guessing at this stage, and possibly ending up with a five, I decided to look for a word that would guarantee a four. FARCE appeared to do that, and indeed it did, giving me two more greens and the yellow C that pointed the way to CARVE.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1208)
In a different time zone where it's still Wednesday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1208, 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 M.
M is a middling letter when it comes to starting a word. It sits 10th in the rankings, with 107 occurrences in the 2,309 answers.
- 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 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 #1208.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is a parent.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1208)
- NYT average score: 5.0 (revised)
- My score: 5
- WordleBot's score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SANER, SNARE (304 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: BILGE (585)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1208) was… MOMMY.
There are only 20 words among Wordle's 2,309 original solutions that contain three of the same letter, and MOMMY is the eighth to appear so far. The others, if you're interested (and why wouldn't you be?) have been SISSY – game #2 in the very early days – ERROR (#71), FLUFF (#382, average score 4.7), MUMMY (#491, 5.8), NANNY (#714, 5.2), DADDY (#833, 4.9) and SASSY (#878, 5.0).
The are two things you might notice about that list. One is that MOMMY joins MUMMY, DADDY and NANNY, which is a cute detail, and the second is that all of those games were very difficult. I don't have average scores for the first two, but for the other five the average is 5.1. Coincidentally, that's the current average score of MUMMY, according to WordleBot – implying that yes, this is another tough one.
It's not hard to see why. If there are are only three letters to find, the chances of you coming up with the correct three are less than if there are five. And given that the triple letter here is the not-exactly-common M, it will have been even harder to find than, say, an R or S.
I suspect that MOMMY will not prove as difficult as MUMMY overall, but the fact that in the UK people generally say the latter, whereas in the US they say the former, will definitely make it harder for people like me who are not in the States.
As it happens, I scored a five – so slightly below the average, and not a disaster in the circumstances. But that was no thanks to my random start word, BILGE, which left 585 possible solutions. Then again, few start words were better – the best of WordleBot's top 20 were SANER and SNARE, which each left 304.
I followed up with ROAST, which I played purely because those were among the five most common letters remaining. That was an "excellent choice", WordleBot said, and left 34 words. With L, E, T and R all ruled out, I needed an ending letter – which meant Y was the top contender. I left out O at this stage, because it was already green and I wanted to see if this was an OU word such as COUCH or POUCH, or FOUND or MOUND. C and D were also there to guard against that. And the K could be in WONKY or COCKY.
WordleBot didn't like it too much but it cut my options to six, so it was far from a disaster. I came up with a few of those: POPPY, MOMMY, WOOZY and (possibly) HOPPY. The others were apparently MOONY and POOFY.
Next, I went with WHOMP in order to point the way to the correct answer, and that worked perfectly – it gave me the green M that confirmed MOMMY as the solution, so I escaped with a just-about-par score.
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 #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
- Wordle #1182, Friday 13 September: HARSH
- Wordle #1181, Thursday 12 September: BRASS
- Wordle #1180, Wednesday 11 September: AISLE
- Wordle #1179, Tuesday 10 September: REBEL
- Wordle #1178, Monday 9 September: DEBIT
- Wordle #1177, Sunday 8 September: DRAWN
- Wordle #1176, Saturday 7 September: OWNER
- Wordle #1175, Friday 6 September: RERUN
- Wordle #1174, Thursday 5 September: WIDEN
- Wordle #1173, Wednesday 4 September: STERN
- Wordle #1172, Tuesday 3 September: FAINT
- Wordle #1171, Monday 2 September: CAMEL
- Wordle #1170, Sunday 1 September: MUSHY
- Wordle #1169, Saturday 31 August: SPOUT
- Wordle #1168, Friday 30 August: KNAVE
- Wordle #1167, Thursday 29 August: FLUNK
- Wordle #1166, Wednesday 28 August: LITHE
- Wordle #1165, Tuesday 27 August: CROWN
- Wordle #1164, Monday 26 August: STAKE
- Wordle #1163, Sunday 25 August: SKATE
- Wordle #1162, Saturday 24 August: FILET
- Wordle #1161, Friday 23 August: LEECH
- Wordle #1160, Thursday 22 August: BRUTE
- Wordle #1159, Wednesday 21 August: MULCH
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.
