Today’s Wordle answer is a blessed relief after several tough ones recently, because it’s really not that bad.
There’s nothing controversial about it after yesterday’s missing accent on SAUTE and it’s not an impossibly obscure word that will have people posting WTF NYT!! on Twitter.
Of course that doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed not to lose your streak, because a Wordle failure is only ever six moves away — so let me give you some clues.
Each day, I’ll be updating this article with tips to help you find today’s Wordle answer. And I’ll even give you the solution, in case you’re really stuck or just haven’t had time to complete today’s puzzle. But no cheating though, because that’s bad.
So be warned: spoilers lie ahead for game #273. Only read on if you want to know today’s Wordle answer!
Today’s Wordle answer #273 — hints to help you solve it
Using one of the best Wordle start words might help you out today, but to be honest it made very little difference to my game. So let me give you some hints in case the same happens to you and you have barely any letters after your first guess:
- It has two vowels in it
- It has a repeated letter in it
- It ends in an uncommon letter
I hope that those hints alone might get you a long way towards finding today’s Wordle answer, but if not then you can read on for a bigger clue; or, if you just want to know the answer, then skip down further for that.
Alright then, here’s my final hint for today’s Wordle answer: you can do that.
Hopefully that will help you without giving it away entirely. Anyway, the answer’s coming up next…
Today’s Wordle answer #273, Saturday, March 19
So, what is today’s Wordle answer for game #273?
I won’t keep you waiting any longer — it’s ALLOW.
Am I wrong in thinking this is quite an easy one? I don’t think so. There’s no sign that ‘Wordle 273 X’ is trending on Twitter, and in fact I’m seeing plenty of 3/6 and 4/6 results, with the odd 5 or 6/6.
It’s a really common word — one of the most common we’ve had in ages. According to Word and Phrase Info, it’s the 339th most frequently used word in English, which is pretty damn high up the list.
You all know what it means, right? Well, it has a couple of definitions, so here’s some of the entry from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
- permit
- to fail to restrain or prevent
- to assign as a share or suitable amount (as of time or money)
- to reckon as a deduction or an addition
- admit, concede
- to give consideration to circumstances or contingencies
My own Wordle game went pretty well today, and I guessed the answer in 3/6. As I said earlier, my start word, STARE, didn’t help much beyond giving me a yellow A.
Although that said, failed letters tell you something too, and the fact that there was an A in the word but not in the middle immediately made it more obvious that there’d be a second vowel somewhere.
Why? Well you don’t often get three consonants together, which would be necessary if the A was the only vowel but wasn’t in the middle. If my start word had been something else then the answer could have been CATCH or WATCH maybe, which have just one vowel followed by three consonants, but I already knew there was no T in it.
So instead I went for the most common vowel after A and E, and played MODAL.
Three yellows is fairly helpful, but it would have been nice to have a green somewhere and it took me quite a while to work through the possibilities and come up with ALLOW. I wouldn’t usually play a double letter so early on, but as double letters go, L is very common, so I risked it here. The rest, as they say, is history.
So, how did you get on with today’s Wordle answer? Let me know in the comments or via email.
Previous Wordle answers
If you’re looking for a list of older Wordle answers, we can also help. Here’s a list going back 20 games.
- Wordle #272: SAUTE
- Wordle #271: MOVIE
- Wordle #270: CATER
- Wordle #269: TEASE
- Wordle #268: SMELT
- Wordle #267: FOCUS
- Wordle #266: TODAY
- Wordle #265: WATCH
- Wordle #264: LAPSE
- Wordle #263: MONTH
- Wordle #262: SWEET
- Wordle #261: HOARD
- Wordle #260: CLOTH
- Wordle #259: BRINE
- Wordle #258: AHEAD
- Wordle #257: MOURN
- Wordle #256: NASTY
- Wordle #255: RUPEE
- Wordle #254: CHOKE
- Wordle #253: CHANT
Wordle tips — how to win at Wordle
The best tip I can give is to use one of the best Wordle start words. I can’t stress this enough — it makes a massive difference.
Without one, you’ll be scrabbling around in the dark trying (and possibly failing) to find the right five letters (or possibly fewer) out of the 26 possibles. But clever people (not me) have done the math and identified the best start words based on both frequency in English and frequency among Wordle answers. So use them!
Secondly, think about combinations, especially at the start and end. Some options are far more common than others — for instance, SH, ST, CR and CH all feature frequently.
Vowels obviously need consideration too: not all Wordle answers will contain more than one, but plenty do, and some even have three. A good Wordle start word should have used a couple, but if they don’t feature you might well want to try another one or two on your next go.
Plus, remember the Y — this sometimes acts as a surrogate vowel, and is easy to forget. It also appears at the end of plenty of words.
Finally, try out possibilities. So long as you don’t press ‘Enter’ you can try possible answers to see how they look on screen. Put in likely letters plus any you know are definitely in the word, then mentally change one to the other available options. This technique has worked for me multiple times, and it’s particularly helpful when the word in question is not an obvious one (like FJORD or ISLET).
What else should I know about Wordle?
Wordle launched in October 2021, but only grew in popularity towards the end of the year, then went viral in January as the world woke up to its charms. In fact, it proved so successful that The New York Times bought Wordle for a seven-figure sum in early February and the game is now part of NYT Games.
It’s played via the NYT Games website here, and is entirely free. Both the NYT and the game’s creator, Josh Wardle, have stated that it will remain free. Some people think that Wordle has got harder since the NYT takeover, but it really hasn’t.
Wordle is a simple game in which your challenge is to guess a five-letter word in six attempts. Each time you guess, you’re told which of your chosen letters are in the target word, and whether they are in the right place.
If a letter is in the correct place, it turns green. If it’s in the word but in the wrong place, it turns yellow. And if it’s not in the word at all, it turns gray.
There’s just one puzzle a day, and everyone completes the same one. It resets at 7 p.m. ET each day, but if you’re eager for another game to pass the time while you wait, we’ve put together a list of the best Wordle alternatives such as the ultra-stressful (but very good) Squabble, the four-Wordles-at-once Quordle, the eight-Wordles-at-once Octordle and the new, soccer-themed, Who Are Ya?.
We also like the geography-based Wordle clone Worldle, the Star Wars-themed SWordle and the math-based Mathler. And, there’s the unofficial Wordle Unlimited, which lets you play as many games per day as you like, and adjust the number of letters in the word, from four to a crazy 11.
We also have pages on today’s Quordle answers and today’s Octordle answers if you want a triple hit of puzzle solutions. And we’d also recommend checking out the excellent new Heardle, which is like Wordle for pop music.