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? TechRadar's Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at our NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for our 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 three 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 and a guide to the best Wordle start words. He's also played every Wordle ever and only lost once and yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Wordle hints (game #1318) - 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 #1318) - 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 #1318) - 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 #1318) - 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 #1318) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1318.
- Today's Wordle answer is to move or divert to the side.
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 #1318)
- NYT average score: 3.5
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 4
- Best start word performance*: SAINT (5 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SHOCK (37)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Today's Wordle answer (game #1318) is… SHUNT.
Psychologically, a Wordle-in-four game can go one of two ways. Actually, probably a lot more ways than that, but mine seem to break down into two buckets at least.
First, and best, there's the type where I begin poorly due to a terrible start word, make great second and third guesses, and finish in four. I couldn't have expected anything more, and I come out of it pleased.
Then secondly, there's the type where I have only a handful of words left after the first guess, but fail to narrow them down far enough on the second then lose a 50/50 on the third.
Both end up with the same score, but they leave me in a very different mood. Guess which type I had today?
SHUNT is not a difficult Wordle at all, with an average score of only 3.5. It begins with the second most common opening combination and ends with the 13th most likely ending combo, and there are no repeated letters to worry about. Okay, so the vowel in the middle is poor old U – the runt of the litter, in vowel terms – but if that's the biggest problem with an answer, you know it's a long way from being challenging.
My start word today was SHOCK, which much to my delight gave me the SH pairing at the beginning of the word. That left 37 answers, but with a couple of greens in place I could afford to play a narrowing-down word that didn't include either S or H and therefore gain lots of lovely information about the solution.
I had the likes of SHELL, SHEET, SHRED, SHARE, SHAME, SHADE, SHADY, SHALL, SHAWL, SHILL, SHYLY, SHINE, SHEEN and SHALE on my shortlist, so after much deliberation, I went with PLANE, reasoning that I ought to include A and E, and that N and L often cropped up too.
WordleBot said it was a "wonderful choice" but more importantly that I had "lucked out" – because PLANE left only two answers. So far, so good.
And then, inevitably, I picked the wrong one. I had SHINY and SHUNT to choose between, and couldn't recall either having been a past Wordle answer, so went with the latter for no particular reason and had to play the former on the fourth guess instead. So yes, I am now in a bad mood. Bah!
How did you do today? Send me an email or let me know in the comments.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1317)
In a different time zone where it's still Sunday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1317, 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 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 #1317.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is bright or cheerful.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1317)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 3
- WordleBot's score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SANER (7 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SOAPY (16)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1317) was… SUNNY.
I got incredibly lucky, with my opening SOAPY giving me green letters at the start and end of the word, and cutting down my possible solutions list to a mere 16. But working out what to play next in order to actually solve the thing… well, that was a different matter.
One of the biggest challenges in Wordle lies in finding the best narrowing-down option for every scenario. Or at least that's the case if you play the way that I do, rather than just guessing words that seem likely at every stage (an equally valid approach, but one that will usually not perform quite so well).
I came up with most of those 16 words, which in itself was not too tricky, just a little laborious as I worked through the various patterns. SH--Y = SHYLY or SHINY; SL--Y = SLIMY or SLYLY; SI--Y = SILKY or SILLY or SILTY or SIXTY… that kind of thing.
However, once I had my list I then had to work out what to play next. This is much more difficult and time consuming. My approach is to think of a word that contains lots of the letters in use among the options, then manually work out what pattern it would leave for each of my choices.
For instance, if I played SILKY, I worked out that it would leave the pattern GYYXG – that's green, yellow, yellow, blank, green – for SLIMY and GYXXG for SHINY. I then repeated that process for all of my possible options, to arrive at a list that looked something like this:
SLIMY GYYXG
SHINY GYXXG
STUDY GXXXG
SUNNY GXXXG
SEEDY GXXXG
SIXTY GGXXG
And so on across all 14 words on my shortlist (I'd missed SISSY and SUDSY, according to WordleBot).
With that done, I then repeated the process for another word, until I found the one that give me the fewest number of big groups and the highest number of distinct groups. It's exactly the same way that WordleBot plays, though I like to think that I thought of it first! It is undoubtedly better at it than me, though, not least because my brain works a little slower than its does, and this is a time-consuming process.
At the end of my deliberations, I decided to play SILKY – whereas WordleBot instead thought TULLE would be better. And it was right: TULLE would have left only two remaining answers, whereas SILKY left me with four: STUDY, SUNNY, SEEDY and SUDSY.
The good news now, however, was that I could freely guess any of that quartet and be guaranteed the answer on the fourth guess at worst, so I went with SUNNY on nothing more than a hunch and got lucky for a three instead.
Many others will have faced a different challenge today, because SUNNY is potentially a too-many-answers word, what with BUNNY, PUNNY, FUNNY, RUNNY and SONNY all differing by only one letter. But I don't think it's a particularly tricky one, not least because so many people play an S at the start early on, and its overall average of 3.8 indicates that it's not too difficult. It may well have been time-consuming, though, if you take the same approach I do.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I've been playing Wordle every day for more than three 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 #1317, Sunday 26 January: SUNNY
- Wordle #1316, Saturday 25 January: CRISP
- Wordle #1315, Friday 24 January: CREPE
- Wordle #1314, Thursday 23 January: UPPER
- Wordle #1313, Wedneday 22 January: REACH
- Wordle #1312, Tuesday 21 January: ICING
- Wordle #1311, Monday 20 January: SQUID
- Wordle #1310, Sunday 19 January: ROWER
- Wordle #1309, Saturday 18 January: SILLY
- Wordle #1308, Friday 17 January: PROSE
- Wordle #1307, Thursday 16 January: FLINT
- Wordle #1306, Wednesday 15 January: KNACK
- Wordle #1305, Tuesday 14 January: FANCY
- Wordle #1304, Monday 13 January: CLOAK
- Wordle #1303, Sunday 12 January: TOTAL
- Wordle #1302, Saturday 11 January: DINGY
- Wordle #1301, Friday 10 January: CRAWL
- Wordle #1300, Thursday 9 January: WAFER
- Wordle #1299, Wednesday 8 January: DRAFT
- Wordle #1298, Tuesday 7 January: ATLAS
- Wordle #1297, Monday 6 January: SPRIG
- Wordle #1296, Sunday 5 January: CYBER
- Wordle #1295, Saturday 4 January: RELAX
- Wordle #1294, Friday 3 January: CHEAP
- Wordle #1293, Thursday 2 January: CHOSE
- Wordle #1292, Wednesday 1 January: NERVE
- Wordle #1291, Tuesday 31 December: LEMUR
- Wordle #1290, Monday 30 December: STARE
- Wordle #1289, Sunday 29 December: MAMBO
- Wordle #1288, Saturday 28 December: DECRY
- Wordle #1287, Friday 27 December: GRAIN
- Wordle #1286, Thursday 26 December: AFFIX
- Wordle #1285, Wednesday 25 December: SHARE
- Wordle #1284, Tuesday 24 December: EAGLE
- Wordle #1283, Monday 23 December: SAUNA
- Wordle #1282, Sunday 22 December: BRAWN
- Wordle #1281, Saturday 21 December: BLADE
- Wordle #1280, Friday 20 December: FLASH
- Wordle #1279, Thursday 19 December: STRAY
- Wordle #1278, Wednesday 18 December: HEFTY
- Wordle #1277, Tuesday 17 December: SCOWL
- Wordle #1276, Monday 16 December: BOAST
- Wordle #1275, Sunday 15 December: FUNKY
- Wordle #1274, Saturday 14 December: DROOL
- Wordle #1273, Friday 13 December: BOXER
- Wordle #1272, Thursday 12 December: VYING
- Wordle #1271, Wednesday 11 December: PLUMB
- Wordle #1270, Tuesday 10 December: PATIO
- Wordle #1269, Monday 9 December: FLUNG
- Wordle #1268, Sunday 8 December: HYENA
- Wordle #1267, Saturday 7 December: HILLY
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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