NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1503, Thursday, July 31

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? Plusdroid.com’sQuordle 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 #1503) – clue #1 – Vowels

How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?

• Wordle today has 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).

Wordle hints (game #1503) – clue #2 – first letter

What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?

• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is F.

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 #1503) – clue #3 – repeated letters

Does today’s Wordle have any repeated letters?

• There are 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 #1503) – clue #4 – ending letter

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

• The last letter in today’s Wordle is 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.

Wordle hints (game #1503) – clue #5 – last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1503.

• Today’s Wordle answer is a decorative element on material.

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 #1503)

• NYT average score: 4.4
• My score: 4
• WordleBot’s score: 4
• My skill score: 87
• My luck score: 41
• My start word performance: TUBER (225 remaining answers)
• WordleBot’s start word performance: SLATE (106)
• Tomorrow’s start word: BARON

Today’s Wordle answer (game #1503) is… FRILL.

Well, this is frustrating. Yesterday, my start word was GRILL, a choice which didn’t help much when it came to finding the solution, ASSAY. But lo and behold, today’s answer is… FRILL.

Admittedly, even starting with GRILL would have left me a choice of four words: DRILL, TRILL, KRILL and FRILL. But I would have been able to play FATED to guarantee myself a three, whereas instead I had to work a lot harder for a four.

Not that I’m disappointed with a four, because FRILL has an average score of 4.4; yes, it’s yet another really difficult Wordle in what’s been a month of them.

This is no surprise to me, because the repeated L adds a further complication on top of the too-many-answers aspect served up by the -RILL format.

A knowledge of past Wordle answers will have helped a little, because KRILL was the answer to game #1,385 back in April; that one had an average of 5.0, so was even harder.

Even the best Wordle start words won’t have helped much, though; STALE, which left 49 options, was the best of the top 20.

My TUBER was considerably less useful – I still had 225 to sift through. Obviously I didn’t do that, though, instead playing CRONY in order to move the R to its most common position and to pack the rest of the word with common letters.

This worked to an extent, in that it reduced my shortlist to a more manageable 17, but it was a little unlucky, and WordleBot said it would have expected it to leave only 10.

I didn’t come up with all 17, but found enough to decide that FLICK would be a decent third guess; both the F and C would sit neatly before the R, and the I would either change color or establish that my missing vowel had to be an A.

I got lucky with this one, because there were plenty of better guesses including WordleBot’s suggestion of FLAGS. But it didn’t matter – the F and I both turned green, the L turned yellow and I had only one possible answer left. That was FRILL, and I played it next for my four.

Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1502)

In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1502, 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 A.

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.

• There were 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 Y.

Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.

Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1502.

• Yesterday’s Wordle answer is to analyze or judge the worth of.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1502)

• NYT average score: 4.2
• My score: 4
• WordleBot’s score: 3
• My skill score: 99
• My luck score: 43
• My start word performance: GRILL (851 remaining answers)
• WordleBot’s start word performance: SLATE (20)
• Tomorrow’s start word: TUBER

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1502) was… ASSAY.

We’re in properly rare territory here, because ASSAY is one of only 38 Wordle answers that contains two repeated letters.

We’ve had 22 before it, and almost all have been difficult; of the 18 for which I have an average score, only one has dipped below the 4.0 level, and six have been at or above 4.5.

ASSAY is not quite that tough – its average currently sits at 4.2, which makes it difficult but far from impossible. That said, its score will have been brought down a little by the fact that SLATE left only 20 options and STARE left 23. Better still, ARISE – which is usually played by about 2% each day – cut the shortlist to only three words, and therefore gave people a fair shot at a two and an almost-certain three.

At the other end of the scale, my start word, GRILL, left 851 possible solutions. Not good. Still, at least I had three common letters ruled out, in the form of L, R and I, so assembled five of the remaining top 10 into the word SPACE for my second guess.

SPACE worked really well. Not only did it give me a yellow A, but it also gave me a yellow S – which was actually quite helpful, given that I could be fairly sure it wouldn’t be at the end of the word and therefore there were now only three likely places for it.

I figured that S might go before either an H or T to make one of the two most common ending combinations, so played HASTY in order to cover both possibilities. I was wrong on both counts – but the S turned green and the Y too, which finally gave the board some structure.

The A was still yellow, though, which meant it had to go either at the start or in the fourth position: A-S-Y or –SAY. Or, as it turned out once I looked at the options, it would go in both positions for ASSAY.

That was the only solution I found, although WordleBot later suggested it could also have been UNSAY. I didn’t think of that, though, so played ASSAY for a four that I’m pretty pleased with.

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 #1502, Wednesday 30 July: ASSAY
• Wordle #1501, Tuesday 29 July: OMEGA
• Wordle #1500, Monday 28 July: SAVVY
• Wordle #1499, Sunday 27 July: WHOLE
• Wordle #1498, Saturday 26 July: HAUNT
• Wordle #1497, Friday 25 July: GOFER
• Wordle #1496, Thursday 24 July: QUAKE
• Wordle #1495, Wednesday 23 July: WATER
• Wordle #1494, Tuesday 22 July: BURNT
• Wordle #1493, Monday 21 July: TIZZY
• Wordle #1492, Sunday 20 July: BLANK
• Wordle #1491, Saturday 19 July: SWORD
• Wordle #1490, Friday 18 July: LORIS
• Wordle #1489, Thursday 17 July: MODAL
• Wordle #1488, Wednesday 16 July: NERVY
• Wordle #1487, Tuesday 15 July: FOIST
• Wordle #1486, Monday 14 July: UNDID
• Wordle #1485, Sunday 13 July: GNOME
• Wordle #1484, Saturday 12 July: EXILE
• Wordle #1483, Friday 11 July: BRAND
• Wordle #1482, Thursday 10 July: JUMPY
• Wordle #1481, Wednesday 9 July: NOVEL
• Wordle #1480, Tuesday 8 July: DREAD
• Wordle #1479, Monday 7 July: STILT
• Wordle #1478, Sunday 6 July: ATRIA
• Wordle #1477, Saturday 5 July: BALER
• Wordle #1476, Friday 4 July: CURVE
• Wordle #1475, Thursday 3 July: POPPY
• Wordle #1474, Wednesday 2 July: INCUR
• Wordle #1473, Tuesday 1 July: MOLDY
• Wordle #1472, Monday 30 June: BLINK
• Wordle #1471, Sunday 29 June: WITTY
• Wordle #1470, Saturday 28 June: STUMP
• Wordle #1469, Friday 27 June: PLAIN
• Wordle #1468, Thursday 26 June: OFFER
• Wordle #1467, Wednesday 25 June: COMFY
• Wordle #1466, Tuesday 24 June: ELITE
• Wordle #1465, Monday 23 June: ODDLY
• Wordle #1464, Sunday 22 June: THRUM
• Wordle #1463, Saturday 21 June: GLADE
• Wordle #1462, Friday 20 June: TAUPE
• Wordle #1461, Thursday 19 June: CURIO
• Wordle #1460, Wednesday 18 June: MUNCH
• Wordle #1459, Tuesday 17 June: PRANK
• Wordle #1458, Monday 16 June: PETTY
• Wordle #1457, Sunday 15 June: QUAIL
• Wordle #1456, Saturday 14 June: GHOST
• Wordle #1455, Friday 13 June: BILGE
• Wordle #1454, Thursday 12 June: VIXEN
• Wordle #1453, Wednesday 11 June: PLAID
• Wordle #1452, Tuesday 10 June: TAFFY

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.

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’ Games 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.

12. The NYT has added in some of its own words, that weren’t in that list of 2,309 solutions. More will undoubtedly come over the next few years.

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