It’s time for your daily round of Wordle hints, expertly crafted to help you keep your streak going even on the toughest of days.
You might think that you don’t need any clues for Wordle today, but remember: failure in this game is only ever six guesses away.
Below, you’ll find a selection of Wordle hints to guide you in the right direction. You don’t have to use them all, but there are five in total should you need them, covering vowels, starting letter, ending letter and more. And if you don’t have time to play at all, you can see the answer, too.
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: Wordle hints and today’s answer are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.
Wordle hints (game #854) – 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 #854) – 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 #854) – 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 #854) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is K.
K is much more common at the end of a Wordle answer than at the start, and in fact ranks ninth overall in this regard.
Wordle hints (game #854) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #854.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a smug smile.
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 #854)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #854) is… SMIRK.
S is by some distance the most common starting letter in the game. There are 365 Wordle answers which begin with one, out of the original 2,309 games – so, roughly one sixth of the total. The only letter-position that’s more common is an E at the end (which occurs 422 times). It’s therefore no surprise to get yet another game that begins with an S, as today’s does.
In fact, S has been even more common than usual of late: eight out of the past 32 answers have started with one, so a quarter of all games. We had another one just two days ago, with SPLAT.
All of which is a long-winded (and hopefully informative) way of saying that if you regularly play one of the best Wordle starting words, it makes sense to select one that has an S at the beginning. And there are plenty of them: SLATE is WordleBot’s favorite, SLANT is its fourth choice, STARE is my pick, to name just three possibles.
Today, however, only STARE was particularly helpful – it reduced the answer list to just 10 options, according to WordleBot, and set me on my way to a 3/6. In contrast, SLATE left 69 answers and SLANT left 96. The difference, obviously, was that STARE also contains an R.
Very few start words made major inroads into the answer list, with none of the top 20 options leaving fewer than 10 and only TRICE (11) coming close to the result STARE achieved. That probably explains why the average score for today’s game is 3.9 – it’s not difficult as such, but most people will have struggled to solve it in fewer than four guesses, given the number of options open to them for the second guess.
I didn’t have that problem, of course. Instead, I just had to choose the best word to filter those 10 options down. My weapon on choice with CHINK, and though WordleBot didn’t like it much (it preferred WINCH) it worked rather well, giving me the I and K and leaving just one more answer. I played SMIRK next for another 3/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #853)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #853, 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 O.
Vowels are generally less common than you’d expect at the start of a word, and O is only the 17th most likely letter to begin a Wordle answer.
- 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 R.
R is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – it’s actually the 4th most common there, behind E, Y and T.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #853.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer means to happen.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #853)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #853) was… OCCUR.
As the note alongside clue #3 above states, repeated letters are quite common in Wordle. Of the game’s original 2,309 answers, 748 contain a repeated letter (or more than one repeated letter). That’s 32%, or almost exactly a third of all games. However, that means two-thirds of answers don’t contain a repeated letter – so it’s no shock that the presence of one typically makes the job harder.
Today’s game isn’t tremendously hard – WordleBot says it has an average score of 4.0 – but it’s a lot harder than yesterday’s puzzle, SPLAT, which had an average of just 3.4. The repeated C is most likely the main reason why that average is so much higher, because none of the letters are in themselves uncommon. The word is hardly obscure, either, so the double-C really does seem like the chief complicating factor.
There are in fact 29 games in which C appears twice, and we had one not very long ago in the form of COACH. But this is arguably harder than that, possibly because the Cs appear together, rather than either being at the start of the word.
Beginning your start word with a C will still have helped, though – CRANE left only 13 possible answers today, CARTE left 12 and CRATE left 15. Compare that to the rather higher results for most of the rest of the best Wordle starting words and you’ll see why it paid to have a C in there – STARE left me 123 possibles, and SLATE left a massive 309.
I always play the same second word after a single-yellow R opener, with that word being CRONY. And today, it helped magnificently, giving me a C and O to add to the R and reducing those possible solutions to just two!
Full disclosure: I only found one of them, spotting OCCUR quite quickly and playing it immediately for a 3/6. I don’t think it would have made any difference if I’d have seen the other option, PORCH, though, because I think I’d have gone with OCCUR anyway. Then again, it’s easy for me to say that now. We’ll never know either way!
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 #853, Friday 20 October: OCCUR
- Wordle #852, Thursday 19 October: SPLAT
- Wordle #851, Wednesday 18 October: MERCY
- Wordle #850, Tuesday 17 October: ADULT
- Wordle #849, Monday 16 October: GRAPH
- Wordle #848, Sunday 15 October: LEAKY
- Wordle #847, Saturday 14 October: AGENT
- Wordle #846, Friday 13 October: UNCLE
- Wordle #845, Thursday 12 October: KNELT
- Wordle #844, Wednesday 11 October: SKUNK
- Wordle #843, Tuesday 10 October: SNAIL
- Wordle #842, Monday 9 October: TRUTH
- Wordle #841, Sunday 8 October: BINGE
- Wordle #840, Saturday 7 October: VIOLA
- Wordle #839, Friday 6 October: CHIME
- Wordle #838, Thursday 5 October: BUNCH
- Wordle #837, Wednesday 4 October: SPURT
- Wordle #836, Tuesday 3 October: WHILE
- Wordle #835, Monday 2 October: MERRY
- Wordle #834, Sunday 1 October: BERET
- Wordle #833, Saturday 30 September: DADDY
- Wordle #832, Friday 29 September: AZURE
- Wordle #831, Thursday 28 September: COACH
- Wordle #830, Wednesday 27 September: SMILE
- Wordle #829, Tuesday 26 September: LOYAL
- Wordle #828, Monday 25 September: ROCKY
- Wordle #827, Sunday 24 September: RIGHT
- Wordle #826, Saturday 23 September: CAROL
- Wordle #825, Friday 22 September: BRUSH
- Wordle #824, Thursday 21 September: STONE
- Wordle #823, Wednesday 20 September: SNARE
- Wordle #822, Tuesday 19 September: CLOSE
- Wordle #821, Monday 18 September: FRANK
- Wordle #820, Sunday 17 September: MUSIC
- Wordle #819, Saturday 16 September: ANGEL
- Wordle #818, Friday 15 September: EXERT
- Wordle #817, Thursday 14 September: RAYON
- Wordle #816, Wednesday 13 September: CLEAR
- Wordle #815, Tuesday 12 September: WHISK
- Wordle #814, Monday 11 September: OLDER
- Wordle #813, Sunday 10 September: QUOTE
- Wordle #812, Saturday 9 September: LUCKY
- Wordle #811, Friday 8 September: ROUSE
- Wordle #810, Thursday 7 September: DWELL
- Wordle #809, Wednesday 6 September: GNASH
- Wordle #808, Tuesday 5 September: BIRCH
- Wordle #807, Monday 4 September: GIDDY
- Wordle #806, Sunday 3 September: AWAIT
- Wordle #805, Saturday 2 September: ONION
- Wordle #804, Friday 1 September: SPACE
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.