Today’s Wordle should be a pretty standard one according to the NYT’s AI helper tool WordleBot – but that’s not entirely my experience. Though people are apparently solving it in 4 guesses on average, I think it has the potential to cause a few problems.
You definitely might want some Wordle hints, because failure in this game is only ever six guesses away. I’ve played every day since December 2021, and can provide you with tips for how to beat the game, as well as giving you specific clues for today’s Wordle.
So, read on for my hints and the answers to game #657 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 #657) – 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 #657) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #657) – 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 #657) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is S.
S is really not a common ending letter at all – mainly because Wordle generally doesn’t allow plurals. It’s the 15th most likely letter to appear at the end of an solution.
Wordle hints (game #657) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for Wordle hints today? Don’t worry, I’ll give you one more for game #657.
- Today’s Wordle answer is the center of things.
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 #657)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #657) is… LOCUS.
I think this is quite a difficult Wordle, and arguably harder than WordleBot is reporting. The ‘bot says people are solving today’s puzzle in an average of 4 moves exactly, which makes it easier than the previous couple of games – but that wasn’t my experience at all.
For starters, it’s not the most obvious word. Then there’s also the fact that it shares most of its letters with the more common FOCUS, and has the same structure as BONUS, BOGUS and LOTUS, among others.
That S at the end will also have thrown a few people. S is incredibly common at the start of a Wordle answer – in fact, it’s the most likely letter there – but a lot less so elsewhere. And it’s particularly uncommon at the end, because plurals don’t feature in Wordle.
The other factor that will have affected your score will be how useful your choice of the best Wordle starting words was. Mine, STARE, was not that helpful (it left 56 possible solutions), but SLATE (5) and SLANT (11) were both pretty good. Words without an S in generally fared worse, as you’d expect, with CRANE (69), TRACE (68) and CRATE (64) all about the same.
After receiving my yellow S at the beginning, I made a list of the possible answers I could think of. I came up with about two dozen, of which many ended –SHY (PUSHY, BUSHY, DISHY), or –SSY (MISSY, FUSSY). I also had a few with the S at the end, including BONUS, MINUS, KUDOS and BOGUS – but not LOCUS at this stage.
I decided to play PUSHY, and it duly ruled out all those Y-ending words. Instead, I was now looking at S endings – of which I could only find four: BONUS, BOGUS, KUDOS and MINUS. I remembered that FOCUS had been a past Wordle answer, so didn’t include that, but I still missed another four, according to WordleBot (MODUS, BOLUS, FICUS and LOCUS), plus one that didn’t end in S – the very obvious USING! Quite how I missed that I do not know.
BONUS seemed a likely answer (more so than BOGUS or KUDOS at least), so I went with that and got fairly lucky; with the O turning green, it could no longer be MINUS. Then again, it could no longer be BOGUS or KUDOS either, so I needed another option.
After staring at the board for a few minutes I realized LOCUS still fit, and fairly confident that I hadn’t missed any, played that. It was right, giving me a par 4/6 today – but as WordleBot pointed out afterwards, I did have a bit of luck there, because it could have been MODUS. Still, I’ll happily take a lucky guess.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #656)
In a different time zone where it’s still Thursday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #656, too.
- Wordle yesterday had two vowels.
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was L.
- There were no repeated letters in yesterday’s Wordle.
- The last letter in yesterday’s Wordle was Y.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is covered in foliage.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #656)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #656) was… LEAFY.
I think this is one of those games where lots of people will be close to the answer early on, but where they’ll then struggle to narrow it down quickly.
The letters are all pretty common, although not necessarily common in their specific positions here. L is not regularly found at the start of a Wordle answer, for instance, and F is even less common in position #4. Then again, Y is the second most common ending letter, and E and A are common pretty much everywhere.
Certainly there’s nothing letter-wise to suggest this answer warrants a pretty high average score of 4.2, as reported by WordleBot.
What’s more, some of the best Wordle starting words will have given you a great start today: SLATE left just 8 possible solutions, STARE left 10, CRATE 9 and LEAST 5.
So why does it have such a high average score? I suspect it’s purely down to the number of similarly spelled words. Many people may have played LEAKY before LEAFY, while LEARN, PEACH, BEACH, LEACH and LEARY all appear to have been popular second and third guesses today.
Sure, some of those don’t look like similarly spelled words – but they all have that EA combination in the middle. with the other three positions filled by consonants.
I had something of an advantage today, in that I remembered playing a very similar game recently. MEALY was the solution to game #636 a couple of weeks ago, and I still had my notes from that day, listing the possible answers I’d come up with. I also remembered that several others – PEACH, EMAIL, BEADY and HEADY – had been past Wordle answers.
That left me with just five to choose from: LEAKY, LEAFY, HEAVY, BEACH and LEACH. Playing either LEAKY or LEAFY would guarantee a 3/6 at worst, because if the L and Y turned green it would be whichever one I didn’t play, if just the Y then it would be HEAVY and if just the L then LEACH. If neither changed color then it was BEACH.
The choice between LEAKY and LEAFY was a random one, but for some reason I decided that LEAKY was more likely to be an actual Wordle answer. Well, I was wrong on that – because LEA-Y turned green, leaving me to play LEAFY next time for another 3/6.
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 #656, Thursday 6 April: LEAFY
- Wordle #655, Wednesday 5 April: SMASH
- Wordle #654, Tuesday 4 April: RATIO
- Wordle #653, Monday 3 April: FLORA
- Wordle #652, Sunday 2 April: STOCK
- Wordle #651, Saturday 1 April: MARCH
- Wordle #650, Friday 31 March: EVERY
- Wordle #649, Thursday 30 March: BREAD
- Wordle #648, Wednesday 29 March: BESET
- Wordle #647, Tuesday 28 March: HURRY
- Wordle #646, Monday 27 March: GUANO
- Wordle #645, Sunday 26 March: UNTIE
- Wordle #644, Saturday 25 March: VOTER
- Wordle #643, Friday 24 March: GROUT
- 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
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.