Today's Wordle hints and answer — solution #1,097 Thursday, June 20 (2024)

Today's Wordle answer is pretty tough. According to the New York Times' WordleBot, the average player completes Wordle #1,097 in 3.5 moves in easy mode or 3.6 if playing by hard rules.

Each day, we will update this article with Wordle hints and tips to help you find today's answer. And if the hints aren't enough, we'll even give you the answer, in case you're really stuck or just haven't had time to complete today's puzzle. Plus, we are also including an analysis of yesterday's puzzle, #1,096, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

So be warned: spoilers lie ahead for game #1,097. Only read on if you want to know today's Wordle answer!

Today's Wordle answer — hints to help you solve it

Our first tip is that you should use one of the best Wordle start words for every game you play. But if you want some more specific clues to today's Wordle answer, then here you go:

• It contains one of the five vowels.*
• There are no repeated letters.
• All five characters are among the ten most common Wordle letters.

* By vowel, we mean A, E, I, O, U. There are other letters that are sometimes considered to be vowels, depending on how they are used.

Those hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Wordle answer. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then skip down further for that.

Alright then, here's a larger hint: Today's Wordle answer smells interesting.

What does today's Wordle start with?

The answer to Wordle #1,097 starts with S, so combined with the hints above you should now have all the clues you need to get the answer and not break a Wordle streak.

OK, it's now time to scroll down for the answer…

Today's Wordle answer

So, what is today's Wordle answer for game #1,097?

Drumroll, please — it'sSCENT.

Hello Wordlers. I struggled a bit with today's puzzle, even if all five characters are amongst the ten most common Wordle letters.

Only two are in the top five, of course, which meant my start word of ORATE was of limited use, turning 'E' and 'T' yellow. As very common letters, that meant a massive 87 possible answers were still in play.

As you might imagine, plenty of WordleBot's best Wordle start words were more effective. PLANT, for example, leaves 15 answers, while PLANE drops that to 13. If you played CARET, only five options would be left, and CRATE leaves just one.

I try and prioritize the five next most common letters on my second turn: 'I', 'C', 'S', 'N' and 'L'.

TILES was a good way of doing that, and it gave me a brand new yellow letter ('S') while ruling out both 'T' and 'E' in two new positions. Eight answers were left, according to WordleBot*.

On my third turn, I made a big mistake. I decided to be bold and play a double 'E' with STEEL, without noticing that I'd already tried 'E' in one of the positions.

It was still pretty effective, turning 'S' and 'E' green, and proving 'T' had to sit in last position. Three options were left.

Unfortunately, I picked one of the wrong ones with SWEPT. But it made getting the answer on my fifth go a doddle. I typed in SCENT and completed the puzzle in five moves.

A bit annoying, this. If only I'd stuck with my rules of playing the top ten most common letters quickly, I'd have managed this faster.

Oh well, tomorrow's another Wordling day. See you then.

* These were: SCENT, SPENT, SWEPT, CHEST, GUEST, QUEST, SETUP and STENT.

Yesterday's Wordle answer

Reading this in a later time zone? The Wordle answer for game #1,096 was TERSE.

Hello Wordlers. Although today's Wordle answer contains a dreaded double letter, it's actually not too bad. Three of the characters feature among the five most common Wordle letters, and one of them twice. The least common character — 'S' — isn't exactly rare either, sitting in eighth place.

The lack of unusual letters meant that my start word of ORATE set me up nicely today. 'E' turned green, while both 'R' and 'T' went yellow.

Unfortunately, WordleBot was misbehaving today, so I can't tell you how that did against the best Wordle start words as usual, but I'd guess I was down to the 15-30 range of possible answers at this point. I'd imagine solid starters with 'S' in like STARE would be even more effective, however.

I usually try and prioritize 'I', 'C', 'S', 'N' and 'L' on my second turn, but with three confirmed characters, my options were considerably more limited.

In fact, I decided to shake them up a bit by playing a double letter with 'THERE'. It was a bold gamble, but it paid off beautifully, with 'T' going green, and the presence of a second 'E' confirmed.

In fact, by the process of elimination, I now knew the answer had to be TER?E or T?REE. With that in mind, the solution was obvious: I typed in TERSE and completed the puzzle in three turns.

Hopefully you did well today, Wordlers. See you tomorrow.

Previous Wordle answers

If you're looking for a list of older Wordle answers, we can also help. Here's a list going back 20 games.

• Wordle #1,096: TERSE
• Wordle #1,095: COVER
• Wordle #1,094: PRIOR
• Wordle #1,093: GRIND
• Wordle #1,092: PROUD
• Wordle #1,091: VAULT
• Wordle #1,090: ANGST
• Wordle #1,089: DETER
• Wordle #1,088: SWUNG
• Wordle #1,087: MANGA
• Wordle #1,086: CROWD
• Wordle #1,085: HENCE
• Wordle #1,084: MELON
• Wordle #1,083: ETHER
• Wordle #1,082: ORGAN
• Wordle #1,081: GROOM
• Wordle #1,080: STARK
• Wordle #1,079: BRAVO
• Wordle #1,078: BASIN
• Wordle #1,077: CHAOS

Wordle tips — how to win at Wordle

The best tip I can give is to use one of thebest Wordle start words. I can't stress this enough — it makes a massive difference.

Without one, you'll be scrabbling around in the dark trying (and possibly failing) to find the right five letters (or possibly fewer) out of the 26 possibles. But clever people (not me) have done the math and identified the best start words based on both frequency in English and frequency among Wordle answers. So use them!

Secondly, think about combinations, especially at the start and end. Some options are far more common than others — for instance, SH, ST, CR and CH all feature frequently.

Vowels obviously need consideration too: not all Wordle answers will contain more than one, but plenty do, and some even have three. A good Wordle start word should have used a couple, but if they don't feature you might well want to try another one or two on your next go. Plus, remember the Y — this sometimes acts as a surrogate vowel, and is easy to forget. It also appears at the end of plenty of words.

Finally, try out possibilities. So long as you don't press 'Enter' you can try possible answers to see how they look on screen. Put in likely letters plus any you know are definitely in the word, then mentally change one to the other available options. This technique has worked for me multiple times, and it's particularly helpful when the word in question is not an obvious one (like FJORD or ISLET).

But if you're still struggling with Wordle, check out how Tom's Guide's Wordle experts have honed their strategy after playing a lot of Wordle after it first launched.

We also have plenty of Wordle tips and tricks to share, like how we've analyzed every Wordle answer used to look for trends and have some further advice for you there.And if you're new to the game you should also take a look at our What is Wordle? guide.

What else should I know about Wordle?

Wordle officially launched in October 2021, but actually started in June of that year and celebrated its first birthday on June 19, 2022. (You can read my thoughts on the 5 things Wordle needs to improve if it's to keep us playing on into a fourth year.)

However, it only grew in popularity towards the end of the year, then went viral in January as the world woke up to its charms. In fact, it proved so successful that The New York Times bought Wordle for a seven-figure sum in early February and the game is now part of NYT Games.

It's played via the NYT Games website here, and is entirely free. Both the NYT and the game's creator, Josh Wardle, have stated that it will remain free. Some people think that Wordle has got harder since the NYT takeover, but it really hasn't.

Wordle is a simple game in which your challenge is to guess a five-letter word in six attempts. Each time you guess, you're told which of your chosen letters are in the target word, and whether they are in the right place.

If a letter is in the correct place, it turns green. If it's in the word but in the wrong place, it turns yellow. And if it's not in the word at all, it turns gray.

There's just one puzzle a day, and everyone completes the same one. It resets at midnight each day. You'll find more information about the game in our What is Wordle? article.

NYT Strands answer

If you've solved Wordle and need help with other games from the New York Times, we suggest you check out our guide on today's NYT Strands answer, which will give you some hints as well as the full answer to today's puzzle.

Wordle Alternatives

If you're eager for another game to pass the time while you wait, we've put together a list of the best Wordle alternatives.

Other Wordle alternatives to try are the ultra-stressful (but very good) Squabble and the soccer-themed, Who Are Ya?. We also like the geography-based Wordle clone Worldle, the Star Wars-themed SWordle and the math-based Mathler.

There are certainly plenty of options once you've finished Wordle for the day!