Today’s Wordle hints – answer, clues and tips for game #649, Thursday, March 30
Today's Wordle hints – answer, clues and tips for game #649, Thursday, March 30
Today’s Wordle answer is slightly easier than the previous three – but it’s all relative! Though WordleBot says people are solving it in an average of 3.7 guesses, it’s one of those answers where you might struggle to narrow down the options. Much will therefore depend on your choice of the best Wordle starting words.
Some Wordle hints might also help, and that’s where I come in. I’ve played every day since December 2021, so I know a thing or two about beating this game and keeping a streak going.
So, read on for my hints and the answers to game #649 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 #649) – 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 #649) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and C.
Wordle hints (game #649) – 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 #649) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is D.
D is a fairly common letter to end a Wordle answer: it’s the eighth most likely to be in that position in a solution.
Wordle hints (game #649) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for Wordle hints today? Don’t worry, I’ll give you one more for game #649.
- Today’s Wordle answer is usually baked.
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 #649)
Today’s Wordle answer (game #649) is… BREAD.
My fears that we may have entered a new era for Wordle appear to be unfounded, because today’s game isn’t quite as bad as the previous three. In fact, its average score of 3.7 puts it well below the norm for the game, which is generally taken to be 4.
But I don’t think that tells the whole story today. Yes, it has a below-par average, but I suspect there will be quite a split between players, with some getting 2/6s and 3/6 and plenty getting 5/6s or lower.
Much will depend on your choice of the best Wordle starting words. That’s always true of course, but it matters more for some words than for others. Today, WordleBot’s favorite starter, SLATE, left 141 possible answers. SLANT left 269. My pick, STARE, left 80. But if you chose CRANE, you only had 10 solutions to whittle down, while TRACE and CRATE left eight. That’s quite the difference.
Even once you had narrowed things down, you might have faced multiple similar choices; BREAK only differs by one letter, for instance, as do TREAD and DREAD. Plus, lots of other words have that -REA- pattern in the middle, for instance DREAM, CREAM, FREAK, CREAK, WREAK, TREAT and so on.
That’s the only real issue with the word, because all of the letters are common both in general and in their specific positions here. B is the third most common starting letter, for instance, while R is third as a second letter. A and E are both common pretty much everywhere. D is only 13th overall, but is eighth when used at the end of a word.
So, what happened with my game? Well three yellows on the first guess looks good, but when those three letters are A, E and R it’s not so positive, because they’re just so common in all places. At least with a yellow T or S you have a better idea of where they might go next.
My instinct was to rule out the ER pattern right away, so I played CAPER in order to include another couple of common consonants; with two vowels already uncovered, I was unlikely to need a third.
This didn’t seem to help much – they all stayed yellow – but it did narrow things down considerably, from 80 to 15. That was still far too many, but fortunately I had a lot of luck with my third guess.
I played BREAK because I could see lots of -REAK words, and also that even if the K was wrong it might well lead to one of those aforementioned REA words such as DREAM. As it happens, the B also turned green, leaving me with just a single possible solution. That was BREAD, and I played that next for a 4/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #648)
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #648, too.
- Wordle yesterday had one vowel, repeated.
- The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was B.
- There was one repeated letter in yesterday’s Wordle.
- The last letter in yesterday’s Wordle was T.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer means to surround or harass.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #648)
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #648) was… BESET.
Maybe we really have entered a new era for Wordle, with more difficult words every day. Or it could be that it’s just coincidence. Either way, today’s Wordle marks three days in a row with an average score of above the standard 4.
WordleBot, the NYT’s AI analysis tool, says this one is taking people 4.1 guesses to solve, making it a tiny bit easier than yesterday’s game (see below) and the same difficulty as Monday’s horrible GUANO.
I actually found it harder than either of those; I scored 3/6 on my previous two games, but could only manage 4/6 today.
The repeated E is one of the potential problems with the word; duplicate letters are usually annoying to find. But bear in mind that E is the most common repeated letter in the game, with around 7.5% of answers containing two of them.
The other letters are all common ones, although S is much more often found at the start of a word (where it occurs in a staggering 15% of all games) than in the middle as it is here.
Instead, the problem lies in narrowing down the possible answers. There are quite a lot of solutions that end –SET, for instance, and (like me) you have have needed more than one guess to arrive at the correct one.
Only two of the best Wordle starting words were really helpful today. My choice, STARE, left 18 possible solutions, while WordleBot’s favorite, SLATE, left 19. But elsewhere things weren’t so good; CRANE (275), TRACE (86) and CRATE (102) were not much use, for instance.
With yellow S, E and T available to me for my second guess, I decided to go for broke and try to solve it in 2/6. This is not my usual approach; I typically take another guess to narrow down the options further. But for some reason I had a hunch about the answer today and played QUEST.
Well, I was wrong. Hunches are stupid, right? Go with probability instead. Probability never tricks you. (Except when it does.) Still, though QUEST was wrong it did give me quite a lot more information. With the T turning green but the S and E staying yellow, I had ruled out quite a few possible answers and now had just five to choose from.
These were BESET, ONSET, INSET, ISLET and BESOT – and at this point I decided to play a little more strategically. Choosing ONSET would guarantee I’d solve today’s Wordle in no more than four guesses, because if the O turned yellow it would be BESOT, if the N turned yellow it would be INSET, if the S stayed yellow it would be ISLET and so on.
ONSET wasn’t right, but it gave me green –SET and pointed the way to BESET for a score of 4/6.
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 #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
- Wordle #606, Wednesday 15 February: SALSA
- Wordle #605, Tuesday 14 February: SOUND
- Wordle #604, Monday 13 February: USAGE
- Wordle #603, Sunday 12 February: GIANT
- Wordle #602, Saturday 11 February: DEBUG
- Wordle #601, Friday 10 February: HEADY
- Wordle #600, Thursday 9 February: STAGE
- Wordle #599, Wednesday 8 February: FLAIL
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.