Today’s Wordle answer and hints for game #941, Tuesday, January 16

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 #941) – 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 #941) – clue #2 – first letter

What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?

The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is B.

B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and C.

Wordle hints (game #941) – 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 #941) – 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 #941) – clue #5 – last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #941.

  • Today’s Wordle answer is a light color.

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 #941)

Wordle answer for game 941 on a yellow background

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today’s Wordle answer (game #941) is… BLOND.

For the third day in a row we have a Wordle that sits comfortably in the not-too-bad range. WordleBot says BLOND has an average score of 3.7, compared to 3.8 for the previous two games, and it holds no particular traps for the unwary (or wary) Wordler.

I suppose there is one possible trap – in that some people might think BLOND is spelled with an E on the end. And it is – kind of, because convention has it that BLOND refers to male hair (or the hair of a male) and BLONDE to female. Or rather, it sometimes does, because in the US BLOND is often the preferred term in general, whereas in the UK you’re far more likely to see it as BLONDE. Not confusing at all, right?  

That aside, it shouldn’t be too tricky. All five letters are common, B maybe slightly less so – but not when it’s at the start of an answer, where it’s third most common after S and C. That said, B doesn’t feature in many of the best Wordle starting words, and neither does D – which will have reduced the average a little.

Indeed, that’s evident from a browse of WordleBot’s report, which states that TRACE left 343 possible answers, as did CRATE and CARTE. SLATE was a little better, at 50, but top dog status (among the 20 best words) went to CRONE, which left only 10 words.

My start word today was CREEK, and that was rather less successful than any of those; it drew a blank, meaning I still had 782 possible solutions to whittle down. No, I did not score a 2/6 today!

Instead, it was a second 4/6 in a row, which is to be expected in those circumstances. My second guess was SAINT – chosen because CREEK had only included one vowel, E, so I wanted both A and I in it. S, T and N were three of the most common consonants left to me. WordleBot said it would have chosen the same word, and it performed well, cutting down those 782 options to a mere 17.

The task for my third guess was to reduce that to one; there was no way I was going to start shooting for the answer at this stage, despite the fact that I’d identified most of them, including – yet again – the horrible HOUND/MOUND/FOUND/BOUND trap. 

So for that reason I left out the already-green N, instead playing GOURD, which contained the final two vowels. There were probably better choices – WordleBot suggested PLUMB – but it did the trick, giving me a green D and yellow O and leaving a single solution, BLOND.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know. 


Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #940)

In a different time zone where it’s still Monday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #940, 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 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 no 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 H.

H is a regular visitor to the final spot in a Wordle word. It occurs 137 times at the end of a Wordle answer, making it the sixth most common letter there.

Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #940.

  • Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a meal.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #940)

Wordle answer for game 940 on a yellow background

(Image credit: New York Times)

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #940) was… LUNCH.

As with yesterday’s game, today’s Wordle has an average score of 3.8 – which implies it’s not too difficult, but also not an absolute piece of cake. It uses only common letters, with one minor exception; although H is the sixth most likely to end a Wordle word, it’s only the 14th most common overall. But that’s no big deal. 

A bigger problem, potentially, might be if you got caught in an -UNCH trap: LUNCH, PUNCH, HUNCH, MUNCH and BUNCH all have that format. It will have been a particularly tough day for those of you who play on hard mode.

Against that, LUNCH is probably the most obvious of those words to play, because L is a more common letter than the others, and LUNCH is probably the most common word. It’s certainly the tastiest. In fact, I’d argue that lunch is the best meal of the day, because it usually contains sandwiches. 

But I digress. To return to the subject at hand, it’s one of those potentially tricky answers, but made easier than it could have been in a couple of ways. And that’s why your score will probably depend greatly on your choice of the best Wordle starting words and on luck, with both that guess and those to follow.

I didn’t get any luck with that first guess. My random word generator served up PATIO, which should have been a good one; WordleBot said it had a skill score of 88/99. However, it drew a complete blank and left me with 349 possible answers. Ouch! If I’d have played TRACE, WordleBot’s new favorite start word, I would instead have had only 43, while the recently deposed SLATE left 106 and CRATE left 64. The better options included CRANE (18), LEANT (4) and LANCE (1).

With no letters to play with, I instead had to work out which of the remaining 21 options would give me the best second guess. I wanted to include both the remaining vowels and it also made sense to include the next three most common consonants R, L and S. However, R seemed slightly less likely to appear given that I knew there was no T or P (it regularly follows both), so I instead added a C and played CLUES.

WordleBot liked this greatly, and it gave me three yellow letters. A green would have been nice, but I had now reduced the options to five, and came up with four of them: LURCH, MULCH, GULCH and LUCKY. Yes, I missed LUNCH – arguably the most obvious of them. 

That was a big mistake, because if I’d have seen it I’d definitely have played it next. Instead I went with LUCKY and had to play LUNCH next time for a just-about-acceptable 4/6.


Wordle answers: The past 50

I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than a year 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 #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
  • Wordle #915, Thursday 21 December: BUILT
  • Wordle #914, Wednesday 20 December: SMALL
  • Wordle #913, Tuesday 19 December: TABLE
  • Wordle #912, Monday 18 December: FUNNY
  • Wordle #911, Sunday 17 December: BACON
  • Wordle #910, Saturday 16 December: GLOBE
  • Wordle #909, Friday 15 December: TOPIC
  • Wordle #908, Thursday 14 December: WOULD
  • Wordle #907, Wednesday 13 December: SPENT
  • Wordle #906, Tuesday 12 December: THESE
  • Wordle #905, Monday 11 December: HOUSE
  • Wordle #904, Sunday 10 December: CHAIN
  • Wordle #903, Saturday 9 December: SHIFT
  • Wordle #902, Friday 8 December: SHARP
  • Wordle #901, Thursday 7 December: SLEEP
  • Wordle #900, Wednesday 6 December: WOMAN
  • Wordle #899, Tuesday 5 December: YOUNG
  • Wordle #898, Monday 4 December: WORST
  • Wordle #897, Sunday 3 December: ADAPT
  • Wordle #896, Saturday 2 December: GENRE
  • Wordle #895, Friday 1 December: TAKEN
  • Wordle #894, Thursday 30 November: RESIN
  • Wordle #893, Wednesday 29 November: SUSHI
  • Wordle #892, Tuesday 28 November: SCOPE
  • Wordle #891, Monday 27 November: TAWNY

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.