Jump to:
- Hint #1: Vowels
- Hint #2: First letter
- Hint #3: Repeated letters
- Hint #4: Ending letter
- Hint #5: Final clue
- Today's answer
- Yesterday's hints
- Yesterday's answer
- Past answers
- What is Wordle?
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.
Your Wordle expert
Your Wordle expert
Marc McLaren
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 #1097) - clue #1 - Vowels
How many vowels does today's Wordle have?
• Wordle today has 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).
Wordle hints (game #1097) - 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 #1097) - 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.
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Wordle hints (game #1097) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Wordle hints (game #1097) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1097.
- Today's Wordle answer is an odor.
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 #1097)
- NYT average score: 3.4
- My score: 3
- WordleBot's score: 2
- Best start word performance*: CRANE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: SLIME (55)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Today's Wordle answer (game #1097) is… SCENT.
If you found yesterday's game (see below) to be easy, then you'll love today's. SCENT has an average score of only 3.4 at the time of writing, which is lower even than the 3.5 figure that TERSE eventually settled at. Given that we had two very easy games at the weekend, too, it's all been rather placid round here lately.
You don't have to be a Wordle genius to see why it's easy, either. All five letters are in the top 10 most common overall, with S the most likely to appear at the start, T the third most likely to appear at the end, and N the second most likely to be in position #4.
Those letters will have led to a lot of green and yellow for people playing some of the best Wordle start words today. CRANE is of course WordleBot's preferred opener, and that left only a single answer here, and therefore a guaranteed score of two. STARE, a little more popular than CRANE, left a dozen options only, so there were presumably plenty of threes there.
I managed a three myself, although my start word, SLIME, was a little less successful, as I still had 55 possibles. But my second guess, TAPER, fixed that – it gave me a yellow T and cut the shortlist down to three.
Or rather, that's what WordleBot said; I only came up with two, SCENT and STENT, whereas the 'bot also had STENO on its list. However, I suspect that's not a genuine answer.
Between SCENT and STENT I was always going to play the far more common former over the slightly obscure latter, and my predictability was rewarded with my first 3/6 for five days.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1096)
In a different time zone where it's still Wednesday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1096, 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 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 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.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1096.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is brusque.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1096)
- NYT average score: 3.5 (revised)
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- Best start word performance*: STARE (1 remaining answer)
- My start word performance: ROGER (150)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1096) was… TERSE.
If ever there was a Wordle to divide opinion, it's this one. TERSE has an average score of 3.8, at the time of writing [it eventually settled at 3.5], but that doesn't come close to telling the full story. And that story concerns start word performance.
Start words are of course a huge part of the game, but even the best ones don't work every day. Today, however, 12 of WordleBot's top 20 reduced the answers list to single figures. The pick of them was STARE, which today left only a single answer and therefore a guaranteed score of 2/6. But not far behind that came CARTE, LEAST and TASER with two, SLATE, TRACE, TRADE and TRICE at four, STALE at five, CARET at six, PARSE at seven and CRATE at eight.
Not all of those are commonly played openers, admittedly, but STARE is; it was the third most popular opener among Wordlers today, as it often is. SLATE is another one that many people begin with, plus, you can add the fact that ARISE left 10, RAISE left nine and IRATE six; all three were among the most frequently played today.
Many of the people beginning with those words will have scored a 2/6 or 3/6, then. But not everyone was so lucky. ADIEU, the most popular of all start words, left 228 options, while AUDIO (second on the list) left 245.
What you'll have here, then, is a game where many people got low scores and many others got high ones. Because make no mistake, TERSE has the potential to be quite hard. The repeated E is obviously a complicating factor, as are the out-of-position R and S. Many people will have had three or four letters early on, but may well not have worked out where they each went.
That was the story of my game to an extent. My opener was ROGER; not a very lucky one, but it did give me a yellow R and E, while leaving 150 words. For the second guess I played it safe once again, and went for CRANE. This placed the E but not the R, and cut the words list to a dozen.
At this point I went into thinking mode and came up with a shortlist of nine: PURSE, VERSE, TERSE, THERE, WHERE, VERVE, SHIRE, SERVE and SPIRE. The ones I missed, according to the 'bot, were EERIE, METRE and LITRE. I deliberated for ages about what to play in order to narrow down the options and guarantee a solve in four, and eventually came up with SHIRT. This would do the trick unless the answer was PURSE or VERVE, in which case it would leave a 50/50 – but I had an inkling that VERVE had been a past Wordle answer, so was prepared to take that risk (it had, in 2023). As it happens, so had THERE, WHERE, SHIRE, SPIRE and SERVE too, so really my answers list was a lot shorter than I thought. But hey, you can't expect me to remember every previous answer.
WordleBot loved shirt, although it pointed out that HEIST would have been even better, because it wouldn't have left any 50/50s at all. Still, that didn't matter because the S and T both turned yellow, joining the still-yellow R, which meant the answer had to be TERSE. I played that next for my 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 #1096, Wednesday 19 June: TERSE
- Wordle #1095, Tuesday 18 June: COVER
- Wordle #1094, Monday 17 June: PRIOR
- Wordle #1093, Sunday 16 June: GRIND
- Wordle #1092, Saturday 15 June: PROUD
- Wordle #1091, Friday 14 June: VAULT
- Wordle #1090, Thursday 13 June: ANGST
- Wordle #1089, Wednesday 12 June: DETER
- Wordle #1088, Tuesday 11 June: SWUNG
- Wordle #1087, Monday 10 June: MANGA
- Wordle #1086, Sunday 9 June: CROWD
- Wordle #1085, Saturday 8 June: HENCE
- Wordle #1084, Friday 7 June: MELON
- Wordle #1083, Thursday 6 June: ETHER
- Wordle #1082, Wednesday 5 June: ORGAN
- Wordle #1081, Tuesday 4 June: GROOM
- Wordle #1080, Monday 3 June: STARK
- Wordle #1079, Sunday 2 June: BRAVO
- Wordle #1078, Saturday 1 June: BASIN
- Wordle #1077, Friday 31 May: CHAOS
- Wordle #1076, Thursday 30 May: GUMMY
- Wordle #1075, Wednesday 29 May: PAPAL
- Wordle #1074, Tuesday 28 May: MINUS
- Wordle #1073, Monday 27 May: SKIER
- Wordle #1072, Sunday 26 May: BEVEL
- Wordle #1071, Saturday 25 May: TITAN
- Wordle #1070, Friday 24 May: GLIDE
- Wordle #1069, Thursday 23 May: SWISH
- Wordle #1068, Wednesday 22 May: EXALT
- Wordle #1067, Tuesday 21 May: DINGO
- Wordle #1066, Monday 20 May: NICER
- Wordle #1065, Sunday 19 May: HITCH
- Wordle #1064, Saturday 18 May: BRINY
- Wordle #1063, Friday 17 May: TUTOR
- Wordle #1062, Thursday 16 May: STALL
- Wordle #1061, Wednesday 15 May: PINCH
- Wordle #1060, Tuesday 14 May: AMASS
- Wordle #1059, Monday 13 May: CUMIN
- Wordle #1058, Sunday 12 May: OUTER
- Wordle #1057, Saturday 11 May: TIDAL
- Wordle #1056, Friday 10 May: MEDIA
- Wordle #1055, Thursday 9 May: JERKY
- Wordle #1054, Wednesday 8 May: PIOUS
- Wordle #1053, Tuesday 7 May: MUSTY
- Wordle #1052, Monday 6 May: SHAVE
- Wordle #1051, Sunday 5 May: DECAL
- Wordle #1050, Saturday 4 May: VALUE
- Wordle #1049, Friday 3 May: EBONY
- Wordle #1048, Thursday 2 May: SLICE
- Wordle #1047, Wednesday 1 May: DIARY
- Wordle #1046, Tuesday 30 April: PROWL
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.
Marc McLaren
Global Editor in Chief
Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief, the latest in a long line of senior editorial roles he’s held in a career that started the week that Google launched (nice of them to mark the occasion). Prior to joining TR, he was UK Editor in Chief on Tom’s Guide, where he oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage. He's also a former editor of the tech website Stuff and spent five years at the music magazine NME, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people’s fun. He’s based in London, and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and pretty much every other type of gadget you can think of. An avid photographer, Marc likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). He also enjoys live music, gaming, cycling, and beating Wordle (he authors the daily Wordle today page).
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