NYT Wordle today — answer and hints for game #1109, Tuesday, July 2
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, and you can also take a look at my NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for my 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.
Wordle hints (game #1109) - clue #1 - Vowels
How many vowels does today's Wordle have?
• Wordle today has 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).
Wordle hints (game #1109) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is I.
I is only the 19th most common starting letter in Wordle, and just 34 of the original 2,309 answers begin with it.
Wordle hints (game #1109) - 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 #1109) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Wordle hints (game #1109) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1109.
Today's Wordle answer is to insert into or decorate an object.
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 #1109)
NYT average score: 4.1
My score: 3
WordleBot's score: 3
Best start word performance*: SNARE (10 remaining answers)
My start word performance: SPOOL (322)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Today's Wordle answer (game #1109) is… INLAY.
We're now almost in record territory for runs of difficult Wordles. INLAY is the fifth game in a row with an average score of 4.0 or higher, meaning it only needs to go one more day to equal the toughest sequence ever.
INLAY has an average of 4.1, so towards the bottom of that range, and is arguably easier than ADAGE, BUDDY and ZEBRA, the three that have preceded it. But it's definitely not easy as such.
As a word, it's hardly a common one: the website Word and Phrase Info, which ranks words according to how often they appear in English, has INLAY at 26,810th. In comparison, ADAGE is at 16,448th, BUDDY at 4,141st and and ZEBRA at 14,397th. It's not one you'd necessarily think of until the options were drastically reduced.
That isn't a situation that will have faced many people today until at least the third guess, because not many start words cut the options substantially. Of the most popular choices, CRANE left 65, SLATE 75 and STARE 191, for instance. The only really successful word that's also widely played was IRATE, which left only two words to pick from.
My random start word was far higher than any of those, with SPOOL – which could have been a very useful opener on some days – leaving 322. It gave me a yellow L, but nothing else, and frankly I didn't think it likely that I'd score a third successive 3/6 at that stage.
That I did owed almost everything to a very fortunate second guess. The most common remaining letters were E, A, R, T, N and C (plus I, but I only wanted two vowels). I wanted to include the L in second position, where it appears most frequently, which meant going with CL at the start, as RL, NL and TL were not valid options. With E and A definite inclusions that meant playing either CLEAR or CLEAT, so I went with the former and got lucky: it gave me a green A and cut those 322 possibles to a trio.
The three were INLAY, BYLAW and GULAG, all of which I found, but I also had a fourth: INLAW. And I was all set to play that, but Wordle didn't accept it. That surprised me at the time, but in hindsight maybe it has to be hyphenated… Anyway, with that off the table I played INLAY instead and scored another unexpected three.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1108)
In a different time zone where it's still Monday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1108, too.
Wordle yesterday had vowels in three 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 A.
A is a reasonably common starting letter in Wordle: 140 games begin with this letter. It ranks 6th among starting letters, behind S, C, B, T and P.
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 E.
E is the most common letter to end a Wordle answer by far. That's one of the reasons why many of the best start words, including SLATE, CRANE, CRATE and STARE, all end with one.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1108.
Yesterday's Wordle answer is a saying.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1108)
NYT average score: 4.2
My score: 3
WordleBot's score: 4
Best start word performance*: TRADE (1 remaining answer)
My start word performance: GUILE (19)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1108) was… ADAGE.
It's not often that we get four difficult Wordles in a row; we had such a sequence in late May, another in early April, one back in January… and that's it so far for 2024. We've got another one here, though, with ADAGE (4.2) following BUDDY (4.4), ZEBRA (4.3) and DROVE (4.0).
As with BUDDY, it contains a repeated letter, and that's probably the main complication here, aside from the fact that it's not all that widely used a word compared to some.
As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, A is the fourth most likely letter to be repeated, with that scenario playing out 69 times across Wordle's 2,309 original solutions. Only E (172 repeats), O (81) and L (71) are ahead of it in this regard. However, that doesn't mean it's truly common; 69 out of 2,309 is a mere 3% of all games, so it's still a lot more likely that you'd just have one A on its own.
Truly poor start word performance wasn't really a factor today, with most of WordleBot's top 20 cutting the answers list to fewer than 50. STARE left 29 and CRANE left 49, for instance, but top marks went to ADIEU (5) and TRADE (just a sole option).
My random opener sat between the ADIEU and STARE range, with GUILE leaving me 19 possibles. The yellow G would prove to be really useful later on, but I didn't include it on my second guess, instead going for DEBAR. Why? Well, I didn't need to play the E at the end, because it was already green. However, several of the words I'd shortlisted contained a second (or rather, first) E – for instance HEDGE, WEDGE, MERGE and VERGE. D was in lots of answers, such as BADGE and CADGE, B was also in BARGE, R was in several of those I've mentioned plus RANGE and FORGE. I also had DODGE, ADAGE, STAGE, AGAPE, AGATE and MANGE.
DEBAR was deemed to only be a "good" guess, with the 'bot preferring DARTS, but it worked very well, cutting my list to two. These were CADGE and ADAGE, and of those the latter seemed more likely to be a genuine answer. So I went for that and got lucky once again, scoring another WordleBot-beating 3/6.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I've been playing Wordle every day for more than two 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 #1108, Monday 1 July: ADAGE
Wordle #1107, Sunday 30 June: BUDDY
Wordle #1106, Saturday 29 June: ZEBRA
Wordle #1105, Friday 28 June: DROVE
Wordle #1104, Thursday 27 June: ORDER
Wordle #1103, Wednesday 26 June: KNEAD
Wordle #1102, Tuesday 25 June: SAVOR
Wordle #1101, Monday 24 June: DOLLY
Wordle #1100, Sunday 23 June: BUGLE
Wordle #1099, Saturday 22 June: EDICT
Wordle #1098, Friday 21 June: PAINT
Wordle #1097, Thursday 20 June: SCENT
Wordle #1096, Wednesday 19 June: TERSE
Wordle #1095, Tuesday 18 June: COVER
Wordle #1094, Monday 17 June: PRIOR
Wordle #1093, Sunday 16 June: GRIND
Wordle #1092, Saturday 15 June: PROUD
Wordle #1091, Friday 14 June: VAULT
Wordle #1090, Thursday 13 June: ANGST
Wordle #1089, Wednesday 12 June: DETER
Wordle #1088, Tuesday 11 June: SWUNG
Wordle #1087, Monday 10 June: MANGA
Wordle #1086, Sunday 9 June: CROWD
Wordle #1085, Saturday 8 June: HENCE
Wordle #1084, Friday 7 June: MELON
Wordle #1083, Thursday 6 June: ETHER
Wordle #1082, Wednesday 5 June: ORGAN
Wordle #1081, Tuesday 4 June: GROOM
Wordle #1080, Monday 3 June: STARK
Wordle #1079, Sunday 2 June: BRAVO
Wordle #1078, Saturday 1 June: BASIN
Wordle #1077, Friday 31 May: CHAOS
Wordle #1076, Thursday 30 May: GUMMY
Wordle #1075, Wednesday 29 May: PAPAL
Wordle #1074, Tuesday 28 May: MINUS
Wordle #1073, Monday 27 May: SKIER
Wordle #1072, Sunday 26 May: BEVEL
Wordle #1071, Saturday 25 May: TITAN
Wordle #1070, Friday 24 May: GLIDE
Wordle #1069, Thursday 23 May: SWISH
Wordle #1068, Wednesday 22 May: EXALT
Wordle #1067, Tuesday 21 May: DINGO
Wordle #1066, Monday 20 May: NICER
Wordle #1065, Sunday 19 May: HITCH
Wordle #1064, Saturday 18 May: BRINY
Wordle #1063, Friday 17 May: TUTOR
Wordle #1062, Thursday 16 May: STALL
Wordle #1061, Wednesday 15 May: PINCH
Wordle #1060, Tuesday 14 May: AMASS
Wordle #1059, Monday 13 May: CUMIN
Wordle #1058, Sunday 12 May: OUTER
Wordle #1057, Saturday 11 May: TIDAL
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.
