NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1603, Saturday, November 8

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.

Your Wordle expert

Your Wordle expert

Marc McLaren

Wordle hints (game #1603) – 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 #1603) – clue #2 – first letter

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.

Wordle hints (game #1603) – 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 #1603) – clue #4 – ending letter

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.

Wordle hints (game #1603) – clue #5 – last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1603.

• Today’s Wordle answer is to get up.

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 #1603)

• NYT average score: 3.1
• My score: 3
• WordleBot’s score: 3
• My skill score: 84
• My luck score: 76
• My start word performance: STRUT (41 remaining answers)
• WordleBot’s start word performance: SLATE (13)
• Tomorrow’s start word: VALOR

Today’s Wordle answer (game #1603) is… ARISE.

The main way I have to judge the difficulty of a Wordle is its WordleBot-recorded average score. I have a list of 1,315 of these dating from April 2022 (when the ‘Bot launched) and by that measure ARISE is in the top 20 easiest ever, on account of its average of 3.1.

It’s not hard to see what the constituent parts of an easy Wordle are – just look at the top 19 (i.e. everything at 3.1 or under):

It’s partly about letters: half of them are constructed from five of the top 10 most common, while the other half – TRACK, CHORE, TEACH, SALTY, TRADE, PLANT, REACH, CHASE and PLATE – have four of the top 10.

But more importantly, all are close cousins to some really popular start words – or indeed are popular start words themselves.

ARISE fits into that final pool, because it’s traditionally the fourth or fifth most common starting word – meaning that 3% of all Wordlers today, many tens of thousands of people, will have started the day by scoring a fabled 1/6.

More than that, though, RAISE only left one option, CRANE left three, STARE and TRAIN left four and ADIEU left seven. That’s a lot of people who will have scored either a two or three today on top of all of those lucky single-guessers.

As a mark of how easy it is, I scored a three myself, and that was despite my opening guess being STRUT – which left 41 words. With a yellow S that I knew a) wouldn’t go at the start of a word and b) that couldn’t be followed by a T, the chance of it going with an H instead was increased. The R, meanwhile, was likely to go in position #2.

CRASH made for a good guess, I thought, but WordleBot disagreed, saying only that it was a “solid” choice and awarding me a skill score of 68. It was pretty lucky, though, and only left two choices: ARISE and AROSE.

Which to go for, then? Well, I didn’t know whether either had been a past Wordle answer, and didn’t check, so I couldn’t base it on that (and neither had been anyway). Instead, I based it on the fact that ARISE is such a common starting word.

My reasoning was that if it was the answer, the average score would be very low – meaning that if I was to beat it, I’d have to score a three myself. Yes, it was entirely based on fear of missing out. And as luck would have it, I guessed correctly. Phew!

Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1602)

In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1602, too.

• Wordle yesterday had 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).

• The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was P.

P is a very common first letter among Wordle answers. It’s the fifth most common in the alphabet and begins 141 solutions in total.

• 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 L.

L is a really common letter to find at the end of a Wordle. There are 155 games that finish with an L, and it ranks as the fifth most likely letter there.

Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1602.

• Yesterday’s Wordle answer is danger.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1602)

• NYT average score: 3.6
• My score: 4
• WordleBot’s score: 3
• My skill score: 89
• My luck score: 52
• My start word performance: RARER (43 remaining answers)
• WordleBot’s start word performance: SLATE (98)
• Tomorrow’s start word: STRUT

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1602) was… PERIL.

In a classic case of Wordle irony, there’s actually very little PERIL in today’s game; this is another rather easy puzzle, the third in succession following GUISE and SHORT.

Like those two, it has an average score of 3.6, a low score that’s almost certainly due to little more than the four very common letters and one very common starting letter (even if P is more of a middling letter in general).

I had to put up with a four, annoyingly, and that was despite an opening guess that left only 43 possible solutions. That first-guess success was a big surprise, frankly, because I didn’t have high hopes for RARER with its three Rs. But it gave me one green and one yellow, which is far more information than I’ve had with some start words this week, so I’m not complaining.

Unfortunately my second guess was nowhere near as helpful. I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking up possible answers, and eventually came up with 18 of them. Most were either –RSE words (TERSE, CURSE, NURSE, HORSE, WORSE), –RCE (FORCE), RGE (MERGE, DIRGE, SURGE) or –RVE (CURVE) – so obviously I played GUSTO next.

Wait, hang on – that makes no sense. Except it does, because I was absolutely certain that the E would go at the end, so it was more important to find out a) which other vowel (if any) was included and b) whether it was an S, G or something else between the R and E.

As it turns out, WordleBot said it was the perfect guess, and exactly what it would have played too. But unfortunately, it was really unlucky and still left 13 options.

What it had done was rule out a bunch of those words. In fact, none of mine were now viable options. So I had another look and came up with seven more: MERCY, NERDY, DERBY, HERBY, PERKY, PERIL and VERVE.

HERBY wasn’t on the ‘Bot’s list (probably with good reason) but the others were. So too were NERVE (how did I miss that?) and NERVY (ditto) plus a couple of less likely words.

I went with BENDY in the end, but that did nothing more than turn the E green. And worse still, I faced a choice of five words: VERVE, PERIL, MERCH, PERCH and EERIE.

This time I found them all (I was playing it ultra careful at this stage and spending ages over each guess) and I was pleased to see that PERIL would guarantee me a five unless the answer was MERCH or VERVE, in which case I might end up with a six. But I didn’t think a fail was possible, so I took a risk and guessed PERIL – and to my relief, got it right. So for me at least, there was actually some peril in the game after all.

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 #1602, Friday 7 November: PERIL
• Wordle #1601, Thursday 6 November: GUISE
• Wordle #1600, Wednesday 5 November: SHORT
• Wordle #1599, Tuesday 4 November: VENUE
• Wordle #1598, Monday 3 November: AWOKE
• Wordle #1597, Sunday 2 November: RABID
• Wordle #1596, Saturday 1 November: MOTEL
• Wordle #1595, Friday 31 October: ABHOR
• Wordle #1594, Thursday 30 October: LATHE
• Wordle #1593, Wednesday 29 October: GLARE
• Wordle #1592, Tuesday 28 October: HOLLY
• Wordle #1591, Monday 27 October: FETID
• Wordle #1590, Sunday 26 October: PLUMP
• Wordle #1589, Saturday 25 October: GAUGE
• Wordle #1588, Friday 24 October: TUBER
• Wordle #1587, Thursday 23 October: DRILL
• Wordle #1586, Wednesday 22 October: STUNT
• Wordle #1585, Tuesday 21 October: DETOX
• Wordle #1584, Monday 20 October: LIMBO
• Wordle #1583, Sunday 19 October: IDEAL
• Wordle #1582, Saturday 18 October: HAVEN
• Wordle #1581, Friday 17 October: GROSS
• Wordle #1580, Thursday 16 October: CATTY
• Wordle #1579, Wednesday 15 October: SPOOF
• Wordle #1578, Tuesday 14 October: FORUM
• Wordle #1577, Monday 13 October: BEARD
• Wordle #1576, Sunday 12 October: WOUND
• Wordle #1575, Saturday 11 October: STACK
• Wordle #1574, Friday 10 October: LEVER
• Wordle #1573, Thursday 9 October: HARDY
• Wordle #1572, Wednesday 8 October: ANNOY
• Wordle #1571, Tuesday 7 October: NYLON
• Wordle #1570, Monday 6 October: AMUSE
• Wordle #1569, Sunday 5 October: PLANE
• Wordle #1568, Saturday 4 October: RELAY
• Wordle #1567, Friday 3 October: SPASM
• Wordle #1566, Thursday 2 October: WIDTH
• Wordle #1565, Wednesday 1 October: SPOIL
• Wordle #1564, Tuesday 30 September: GEESE
• Wordle #1563, Monday 29 September: CIVIL
• Wordle #1562, Sunday 28 September: GOOEY
• Wordle #1561, Saturday 27 September: FRITZ
• Wordle #1560, Friday 26 September: DALLY
• Wordle #1559, Thursday 25 September: DRAPE
• Wordle #1558, Wednesday 24 September: BLUNT
• Wordle #1557, Tuesday 23 September: MOUTH
• Wordle #1556, Monday 22 September: QUILL
• Wordle #1555, Sunday 21 September: COVEN
• Wordle #1554, Saturday 20 September: DEFER
• Wordle #1553, Friday 19 September: LATER

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 in 2022 and is still going strong in 2025.

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.