Wordle today – hints, clues and answer for game #589, Sunday, January 29
Wordle today is slightly harder than yesterday’s, although still not too tricky compared to many days. WordleBot says people are solving it in 3.9 guesses on average, so there’s no reason why you can’t score a 3/6 or better – particularly if you use one of the best Wordle start words.
I’m a Wordle addict who’s been playing since December 2021, so I can definitely help you solve Wordle today and improve your game for tomorrow. Read on for my hints and clues to Wordle #589.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about Wordle today and Wordle yesterday are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Wordle today (game #589) – hint #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has one vowel*. (Need another hint? Next I’ll tell you what the first letter is.)
For the third game in a row, there’s just the one vowel in today’s Wordle answer. Given that Wordle has an average of 1.75 vowels per game among its 2,309 answers, this is a reasonably unlikely occurrence.
The last game to have just one vowel in it was (obviously) #588 yesterday: FLIRT.
* 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 today (game #589) – hint #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is F. (Want a third hint? I’ll also tell you if there are any repeated letters.)
This is a repeat of yesterday, when F started FLIRT. F is a very common starting letter in Wordle, ranking seventh behind only S, C, B, T, P and A. Overall there are 135 solutions that begin with this letter.
We have had two starting Fs in a row before – in fact we’ve had three! In games #492 to #494 (October 2022) we had a sequence of FAULT, FOGGY and FLOUT, so maybe getting two opening Fs in a row isn’t that surprising.
Wordle today (game #589) – hint #3 – repeated letters
Does today’s Wordle have any repeated letters?
• There are no repeated letters in today’s Wordle. (I’ve got one more hint if you need one below.)
Repeated letters are quite common in the game, with 748 of the 2,309 Wordle answers containing one. But it’s still far more common that there isn’t a repeated letter. We got a double-R in WORRY on Friday and a double-E in BEEFY on Thursday, so we’ve had our fill of them in recent games already.
Wordle today (game #589) – hint #4 – final clue
Still looking for clues for Wordle today? Don’t worry, I’ll give you one more hint for game #589.
- There’s something suspicious about today’s Wordle answer.
If you just want to know the answer at this stage you can scroll down to see it, 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 the solution then DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER BECAUSE THE ANSWER IS DIRECTLY BELOW. So don’t say you weren’t warned!
Wordle today (game #589) – the answer
The answer to today’s Wordle, game #589, is… FISHY.
Wordle today is a little harder than yesterday’s game, with WordleBot revealing that players are completing it in 3.9 guesses. That still places it on the slightly easier side of things, though, with 4/6 being about the average across all games.
It might look like there’s something FISHY about my game, because I contrived to score a 3/6 despite getting no letters at all from my opening guess of CRATE.
I followed that up with one of my favorite words to play in this situation, namely DOILY. This has the advantage of including O and I, the two next most common vowels after A and E, plus the very common consonants L and D. It also has a Y in there, and this was key to my game today.
With the E, R and T all ruled out in my first guess, I figured I needed to work out what letter the answer would end in. Y is the second most common ending letter after E, so it made sense to play it here. L and D are also common ending letters, so I hoped that one of those three would be confirmed.
The Y duly turned green, while the I in the middle of DOILY went yellow. According to WordleBot this left me with 19 possible answers – surely too many to guess correctly.
I didn’t find all 19, but I came up with about a dozen including FISHY, HISSY, MISSY, PINKY, PINNY, HIPPY, NIPPY and FIZZY. Based on the letters in those words I decided FISHY was the best guess, as it contained letters common to all of my possible answers.
I didn’t expect it to be right – I thought it would just point the way to a 4/6 – but as it happened I got VERY lucky today, with all five letters going green. That was a nice surprise!
Hopefully you solved it too.
Wordle yesterday (game #588) – hints
In a different time zone where it’s still Saturday? Don’t worry – I can give you some hints for Wordle #588 too.
- Wordle yesterday had one vowel*
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was F.
- There were no repeated letters in yesterday’s Wordle.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer means to behave amorously but without serious intent.
Wordle yesterday (game #588) – the answer
The answer to yesterday’s Wordle, game #588, was… FLIRT.
Wordle yesterday was a much easier one than the previous couple.
In fact, WordleBot says people completed it in just 3.4 guesses, which is almost a full guess below Friday’s WORRY.
That’s not much of a surprise, because there’s no double letter in this Wordle and no uncommon letters either. F isn’t that common overall, but it does start lots of Wordle answers, while L, I, R and T are all mainstays of the game.
There’s nothing obscure about the word, either – FLIRT is used regularly in everyday speech and on TV and finding it here shouldn’t have caused too many problems.
My opening guess of CRATE set me on the way quite nicely, turning up a yellow R and yellow T. According to WordleBot it still left me with 39 guesses, but that’s not too many for an opening go. Some people will have had even more luck, though – if you played SLANT today you had just 7 remaining answers to sift through, and anyone who led with TRICE was down to just 3!
I worked through the options for a little while and came up with a couple of likely formats. I found several words that ended —RT, for instance SPORT, SHORT, SHIRT and SNORT, plus another bunch that had T at the start followed by an H: THROB, THIRD, THROW and THORN. There were others, but I decided to go with SHIRT so I could include an H and end with the RT.
And I got lucky! Though the S and H turned gray, the I, R and T all went green. I figured I’d still have a couple of options, but the harder I looked the more I could only find one: FLIRT.
After wracking my brains for a few more minutes I played FLIRT and solved the Wordle yesterday in three guesses.
Hopefully you solved it too!
Wordle answers: The past 50
I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than a year now and have tracked all of the answers so I can help you improve your game. Here are the past 50 solutions starting with yesterday’s answer.
- Wordle #588, Saturday 28 January: FLIRT
- Wordle #587, Friday 27 January: WORRY
- Wordle #586, Thursday 26 January: BEEFY
- Wordle #585, Wednesday 25 January: MAIZE
- Wordle #584, Tuesday 24 January: COUNT
- Wordle #583, Monday 23 January: ELUDE
- Wordle #582, Sunday 22 January: MATEY
- Wordle #581, Saturday 21 January: BLURB
- Wordle #580, Friday 20 January: ALTER
- Wordle #579, Thursday 19 January: MUCKY
- Wordle #578, Wednesday 18 January: CHARD
- Wordle #577, Tuesday 17 January: ADOPT
- Wordle #576, Monday 16 January: FROCK
- Wordle #575, Sunday 15 January: SPIRE
- Wordle #574, Saturday 14 January: KOALA
- Wordle #573, Friday 13 January: HUMAN
- Wordle #572, Thursday 12 January: LEAPT
- Wordle #571, Wednesday 11 January: SEDAN
- Wordle #570, Tuesday 10 January: GRIMY
- Wordle #569, Monday 9 January: PIXIE
- Wordle #568, Sunday 8 January: OPERA
- Wordle #567, Saturday 7 January: LEMON
- Wordle #566, Friday 6 January: BELIE
- Wordle #565, Thursday 5 January: SLEEK
- Wordle #564, Wednesday 4 January: LAYER
- Wordle #563, Tuesday 3 January: ANTIC
- Wordle #562, Monday 2 January: SKIRT
- Wordle #561, Sunday 1 January: WHINE
- Wordle #560, Saturday 31 December: MANLY
- Wordle #559, Friday 30 December: MOLAR
- Wordle #558, Thursday 29 December: HAVOC
- Wordle #557, Wednesday 28 December: IMPEL
- Wordle #556, Tuesday 27 December: CONDO
- Wordle #555, Monday 26 December: JUDGE
- Wordle #554, Sunday 25 December: EXTRA
- Wordle #553, Saturday 24 December: POISE
- Wordle #552, Friday 23 December: AORTA
- Wordle #551, Thursday 22 December: EXCEL
- Wordle #550, Wednesday 21 December: LUNAR
- Wordle #549, Tuesday 20 December: THIRD
- Wordle #548, Monday 19 December: SLATE
- Wordle #547, Sunday 18 December: TAPER
- Wordle #546, Saturday 17 December: CHORD
- Wordle #545, Friday 16 December: PROBE
- Wordle #544, Thursday 15 December: RIVAL
- Wordle #543, Wednesday 14 December: USUAL
- Wordle #542, Tuesday 13 December: SPOKE
- Wordle #541, Monday 12 December: APPLY
- Wordle #540, Sunday 11 December: NAIVE
- Wordle #539, Saturday 10 December: KNOCK
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.