NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1319, Tuesday, January 28

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? TechRadar's Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at our NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for our 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 #1319) - clue #1 - 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 #1319) - clue #2 - first letter

F is a very common starting letter in Wordle. It ranks seventh behind only S, C, B, T, P and A and overall there are 135 solutions that begin with this letter.

Wordle hints (game #1319) - clue #3 - repeated letters

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 #1319) - clue #4 - ending letter

R is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – it's actually the 4th most common there, behind E, Y and T.

Wordle hints (game #1319) - clue #5 - last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1319.

• Today's Wordle answer is a sign of sickness.

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 #1319)

• NYT average score: 4.6
• My score: 4
• WordleBot's score: 4
• Best start word performance*: LEAST (97 remaining answers)
• My start word performance: REMIT (41)

* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words

Today's Wordle answer (game #1319) is… FEVER.

Oh Wordle, you really are so predictable sometimes. So far this year we've had four games with a really high average score, which for the purposes of rhetoric I will hereby decide is 4.3 and above. These have been CYBER (4.6), WAFER (5.0), ROWER (5.6) and UPPER (4.3). What do they all have in common? Yes, they are all ER words.

What is today's answer, FEVER? Yes, it is an ER word.

Does today's answer have a high average score of 4.3 or above? Yes, it currently stands at 4.6.

Do you really need me to tell you any of this? No, so I shall stop writing and instead go and walk the dog, who has been staring plaintively at me for the past half hour.

…

Right, I'm back. Where was I? OK, so FEVER is a little predictable. It also may seem rather familiar, to the extent that you may well have thought it was a past Wordle answer. But no – you're thinking of FEWER, game #288 back in April 2022 and itself a very difficult Wordle with a score of 4.9. Or possibly FOYER, also in April 2022 (that was a nasty month) and this time with an average of 5.4. There are very few new stories left in this game.

FEVER has a Cerberus-like triple threat, in the form of its ER format, its repeated letter E and its V in the middle. Arguably there's a fourth, too, in the shape of its similarity to the likes of FEWER, NEVER, SEVER and LEVER, or even DEFER and REFER – but Cerberus didn't have four heads, so that doesn't work.

In short, it's no surprise to see it causing problems today – though strangely, my game was a relatively calm affair. Much of that was due to my random opening word, REMIT, giving me a very helpful green E in position #2 and a yellow R. That cut my shortlist to 41, which was way better than the result for any of WordleBot's top 20 choices.

For my second guess, I left out the E in favor of including another letter, but rather than go down the ER route immediately I played SNARL. This was because there were also a lot of non-ER words that could fit, including PEARL, YEARN, LEARN, FERRY, BERRY, BEARD, HEARD, WEARY and others that had the R in position #4 rather than at the end.

SNARL did not uncover any more letters and left the R yellow, which meant that I could now be headed into ER territory. But as it turned out, I had more answers with R in the middle than at the end, still: VERGE, VERVE, PERCH, DERBY, PERKY and JERKY, versus FEWER, FEVER and DEFER in the ER camp. I also missed a couple: XEROX and DECOR.

My third guess was complicated by the fact that I knew some of these had been answers before; who could ever forget FEWER or VERGE, for instance? So I played DERBY and think I was justified in doing so, though WordleBot thought otherwise.

As it happens, DERBY left me with two words to pick from, but these were FEWER and FEVER, so I had no hesitation in playing the latter and taking my four. As Wordle moves closer to its end game these memory tests will get all the more frequent.

How did you do today? Send me an email or let me know in the comments.

Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1318)

In a different time zone where it's still Monday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1318, too.

• Wordle yesterday had 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).

• The first letter in yesterday's Wordle answer was 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.

• There were no 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 T.

T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.

Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1318.

• Yesterday's Wordle answer is to move or divert to the side.

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1318)

• NYT average score: 3.5
• My score: 4
• WordleBot's score: 4
• Best start word performance*: SAINT (5 remaining answers)
• My start word performance: SHOCK (37)

* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1318) was… SHUNT.

Psychologically, a Wordle-in-four game can go one of two ways. Actually, probably a lot more ways than that, but mine seem to break down into two buckets at least.

First, and best, there's the type where I begin poorly due to a terrible start word, make great second and third guesses, and finish in four. I couldn't have expected anything more, and I come out of it pleased.

Then secondly, there's the type where I have only a handful of words left after the first guess, but fail to narrow them down far enough on the second then lose a 50/50 on the third.

Both end up with the same score, but they leave me in a very different mood. Guess which type I had yesterday?

SHUNT is not a difficult Wordle at all, with an average score of only 3.5. It begins with the second most common opening combination and ends with the 13th most likely ending combo, and there are no repeated letters to worry about. Okay, so the vowel in the middle is poor old U – the runt of the litter, in vowel terms – but if that's the biggest problem with an answer, you know it's a long way from being challenging.

My start word was SHOCK, which much to my delight gave me the SH pairing at the beginning of the word. That left 37 answers, but with a couple of greens in place I could afford to play a narrowing-down word that didn't include either S or H and therefore gain lots of lovely information about the solution.

I had the likes of SHELL, SHEET, SHRED, SHARE, SHAME, SHADE, SHADY, SHALL, SHAWL, SHILL, SHYLY, SHINE, SHEEN and SHALE on my shortlist, so after much deliberation, I went with PLANE, reasoning that I ought to include A and E, and that N and L often cropped up too.

WordleBot said it was a "wonderful choice" but more importantly that I had "lucked out" – because PLANE left only two answers. So far, so good.

And then, inevitably, I picked the wrong one. I had SHINY and SHUNT to choose between, and couldn't recall either having been a past Wordle answer, so went with the latter for no particular reason and had to play the former on the fourth guess instead. So yes, I am now in a bad mood. Bah!

Wordle answers: The past 50

I've been playing Wordle every day for more than three 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 #1318, Monday 27 January: SHUNT
• Wordle #1317, Sunday 26 January: SUNNY
• Wordle #1316, Saturday 25 January: CRISP
• Wordle #1315, Friday 24 January: CREPE
• Wordle #1314, Thursday 23 January: UPPER
• Wordle #1313, Wedneday 22 January: REACH
• Wordle #1312, Tuesday 21 January: ICING
• Wordle #1311, Monday 20 January: SQUID
• Wordle #1310, Sunday 19 January: ROWER
• Wordle #1309, Saturday 18 January: SILLY
• Wordle #1308, Friday 17 January: PROSE
• Wordle #1307, Thursday 16 January: FLINT
• Wordle #1306, Wednesday 15 January: KNACK
• Wordle #1305, Tuesday 14 January: FANCY
• Wordle #1304, Monday 13 January: CLOAK
• Wordle #1303, Sunday 12 January: TOTAL
• Wordle #1302, Saturday 11 January: DINGY
• Wordle #1301, Friday 10 January: CRAWL
• Wordle #1300, Thursday 9 January: WAFER
• Wordle #1299, Wednesday 8 January: DRAFT
• Wordle #1298, Tuesday 7 January: ATLAS
• Wordle #1297, Monday 6 January: SPRIG
• Wordle #1296, Sunday 5 January: CYBER
• Wordle #1295, Saturday 4 January: RELAX
• Wordle #1294, Friday 3 January: CHEAP
• Wordle #1293, Thursday 2 January: CHOSE
• Wordle #1292, Wednesday 1 January: NERVE
• Wordle #1291, Tuesday 31 December: LEMUR
• Wordle #1290, Monday 30 December: STARE
• Wordle #1289, Sunday 29 December: MAMBO
• Wordle #1288, Saturday 28 December: DECRY
• Wordle #1287, Friday 27 December: GRAIN
• Wordle #1286, Thursday 26 December: AFFIX
• Wordle #1285, Wednesday 25 December: SHARE
• Wordle #1284, Tuesday 24 December: EAGLE
• Wordle #1283, Monday 23 December: SAUNA
• Wordle #1282, Sunday 22 December: BRAWN
• Wordle #1281, Saturday 21 December: BLADE
• Wordle #1280, Friday 20 December: FLASH
• Wordle #1279, Thursday 19 December: STRAY
• Wordle #1278, Wednesday 18 December: HEFTY
• Wordle #1277, Tuesday 17 December: SCOWL
• Wordle #1276, Monday 16 December: BOAST
• Wordle #1275, Sunday 15 December: FUNKY
• Wordle #1274, Saturday 14 December: DROOL
• Wordle #1273, Friday 13 December: BOXER
• Wordle #1272, Thursday 12 December: VYING
• Wordle #1271, Wednesday 11 December: PLUMB
• Wordle #1270, Tuesday 10 December: PATIO
• Wordle #1269, Monday 9 December: FLUNG
• Wordle #1268, Sunday 8 December: HYENA

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.