This has been a pretty easy week in everyone’s favorite word game, and today’s Wordle answer does nothing to break that trend. WordleBot – the NYT’s helpful AI tool – says people are solving it in just 3.6 guesses, which makes it the joint easiest we’ve had for three weeks.
That doesn’t mean you won’t need some Wordle hints, though, because failure in this game is only ever six guesses away. I’ve played every day since December 2021 and can give you some clues to ensure your streak stays intact.
So read on for my hints and the answers to game #643 and bookmark this page so you can easily return tomorrow. Oh, and if you also play Quordle then my Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that, too.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about today’s Wordle answers are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.
Wordle hints (game #643) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has two vowels*.
* 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 #643) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is G.
G is the eighth most common starting letter, featuring in 115 Wordle answers. It was also the starting letter in Monday’s GLOVE.
Wordle hints (game #643) – 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 #643) – 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 #643) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for Wordle hints today? Don’t worry, I’ll give you one more for game #643.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a filling substance.
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 #643)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #643) is… GROUT.
I said yesterday that this game had gotten too easy, and today really takes that trend to another level. GROUT has almost no complications to it at all, and WordleBot duly says people are solving it in just 3.6 guesses.
Consider the evidence: it starts with a G, the eighth most common letter to begin a Wordle answer. That’s followed by an R – not just the third most common in that position, but also the third most common overall. Put them together and you have GR, which is the sixth most common starting combination.
Want more? Well, O and U go together a massive 73 times in total, a vowel combo that’s more common than any other except EA. Oh, and T is the third most common ending letter in the game, behind only E and Y.
It’s all set up for a good score, then, despite the fact that not all of the best Wordle starting words were particularly helpful. WordleBot’s favorite, SLATE, left 102 possible solutions, while CRANE (66), SLANT (62) and my choice of STARE (48) were not much better. TRACE was a good one, though – that left just 17 possibles.
So, with 48 answers to navigate, I couldn’t possibly narrow it down for a 3/6, right? Wrong. Heeding WordleBot’s previous advice about trying to narrow down the position of yellow letters by playing them in multiple positions, I went with TROUT.
This was a calculated move; if the T had been in the middle, rather than at either end of the word (in MOTOR, say), I’d effectively have wasted a letter. But it’s most common at the start or end, so playing it in those two spots made some sense. Plus, I put the R second – and that’s a very common second letter, as detailed above.
Well, it worked like a charm: the R, O, U and second T all turned green, leaving me, implausibly, with just one remaining option. That word was GROUT and it gave me a WordleBot-beating 3/6 to end the working week.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #642)
In a different time zone where it’s still Thursday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #642, too.
- Wordle yesterday had two vowels.
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was S.
- There were no repeated letters in yesterday’s Wordle.
- The last letter in yesterday’s Wordle was D.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a sober character.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #642)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #642) was… STAID.
Is Wordle too easy? That’s the hard-hitting topic up for debate in today’s column. It’s not, of course – it just feels like it easy today, when STAID gives us our sixth answer with an average score of 4 or below in the past seven days. In fact, you’d have to go all the way back to REVEL on March 10 to find an answer that was really difficult.
STAID is not really difficult. WordleBot says people are solving it in an average of 3.8 guesses, and I can’t see too many people scoring lower than a 4/6 today unless they got really unlucky with their choice of the best Wordle starting words.
All five letters are common ones, and some are particularly likely to be found in these specific positions. For instance, S is the most common starting letter (and ranks eighth overall), and A is the most common in the middle of a word (and second overall). T, I and D are all just generally common.
That will have led to some great starts in Wordle today. My opening guess, STARE, left just 11 solutions; SLATE left 15, SLANT 16 and LEAST 12. Things were less positive with CRANE (59) and TRACE (25), but given that some days there are hundreds of answers left, this wasn’t too bad.
I didn’t find 11 answers myself – that’s the number that WordleBot came up with. I missed STAPH, STANK and (somehow) STAMP from my list, but did find the other eight: STALL, STAFF, STALK, STAND, STAID, STACK, STASH and STAIN.
Though I didn’t have many remaining answers, I still had too many to risk guessing right away. If I’d have guessed the likes of STASH or STAND, for instance, I could easily still have ended up with five or six answers left. I’d probably still have secured a win, but not a high score.
Instead, I narrowed things down by playing CHINK. This contained five letters that appeared in the various answers and that would hopefully point the way to the actual solution. It wasn’t a perfect word that would guarantee ruling out all answers, but it was close.
And as it happened, it worked: only the I turned yellow, meaning STAID was the only possible solution.
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 #642, Thursday 23 March: STAID
- Wordle #641, Wednesday 22 March: DUVET
- Wordle #640, Tuesday 21 March: TOUGH
- Wordle #639, Monday 20 March: GLOVE
- Wordle #638, Sunday 19 March: CREDO
- Wordle #637, Saturday 18 March: YACHT
- Wordle #636, Friday 17 March: MEALY
- Wordle #635, Thursday 16 March: CIDER
- Wordle #634, Wednesday 15 March: SWEEP
- Wordle #633, Tuesday 14 March: SURLY
- Wordle #632, Monday 13 March: BLAME
- Wordle #631, Sunday 12 March: BIRTH
- Wordle #630, Saturday 11 March: EMAIL
- Wordle #629, Friday 10 March: REVEL
- Wordle #628, Thursday 9 March: WHERE
- Wordle #627, Wednesday 8 March: REGAL
- Wordle #626, Tuesday 7 March: HORSE
- Wordle #625, Monday 6 March: PINKY
- Wordle #624, Sunday 5 March: TOXIC
- Wordle #623, Saturday 4 March: TREND
- Wordle #622, Friday 3 March: SQUAT
- Wordle #621, Thursday 2 March: ABOVE
- Wordle #620, Wednesday 1 March: MOOSE
- Wordle #619, Tuesday 28 February: POLKA
- Wordle #618, Monday 27 February: WORSE
- Wordle #617, Sunday 26 February: SYRUP
- Wordle #616, Saturday 25 February: FIFTY
- Wordle #615, Friday 24 February: ARBOR
- Wordle #614, Thursday 23 February: VAGUE
- Wordle #613, Wednesday 22 February: RIPER
- Wordle #612, Tuesday 21 February: RUDDY
- Wordle #611, Monday 20 February: SWEAT
- Wordle #610, Sunday 19 February: KIOSK
- Wordle #609, Saturday 18 February: AVAIL
- Wordle #608, Friday 17 February: CACHE
- Wordle #607, Thursday 16 February: MAGIC
- Wordle #606, Wednesday 15 February: SALSA
- Wordle #605, Tuesday 14 February: SOUND
- Wordle #604, Monday 13 February: USAGE
- Wordle #603, Sunday 12 February: GIANT
- Wordle #602, Saturday 11 February: DEBUG
- Wordle #601, Friday 10 February: HEADY
- Wordle #600, Thursday 9 February: STAGE
- Wordle #599, Wednesday 8 February: FLAIL
- Wordle #598, Tuesday 7 February: APPLE
- Wordle #597, Monday 6 February: NINTH
- Wordle #596, Sunday 5 February: DANCE
- Wordle #595, Saturday 4 February: UNLIT
- Wordle #594, Friday 3 February: TASTY
- Wordle #593, Thursday 2 February: SHIRK
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 2023.
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.