Looking for help with today’s Wordle? In this guide, we have some extra hints and clues to help you on your path to Wordle victory, plus a fun Bonus Wordle to solve while you’re at it. The answer is below as well, plus some Wordle Bot analysis and plenty more.

We’re almost all the way to October, and then autumn kicks in for real. Leaves will be changing soon enough. Then out come the skeletons and jack-o-lanterns and orange purple lights. Here comes Halloween, here comes Halloween . . .

But for now it’s still September and we have a Wordle to solve. Shall we?

Looking for Saturday’s Wordle answer? Check out our guide right here .

Today’s Wordle Hints & Clues

Okay, now that the bonus custom Wordle is out of the way, let’s move on to the official real deal Wordle!

  • Wordle Bot’s Starting Word: SLATE
  • My Starting Word Today: LUNAR (212 words left)
  • The Hint : A small boat.
  • The Clue: This Wordle has a double letter.

Hints not enough, or curious to see if you did better than me on today’s Wordle? You can find the answer and read my Wordle Bot analysis and check out the current Competitive Wordle score between me, your humble Wordle guide, and the Wordle Bot below!

“Sloop” comes from Dutch sloep , meaning a type of small boat, probably ultimately from a Germanic or Scandinavian nautical term. It entered English in the 17th century and came to mean a single-masted sailing vessel, typically with one mainsail and one headsail.

Today’s Wordle Bot Analysis

Every day I check Wordle Bot to help analyze my guessing game. You can check your Wordle score with Wordle Bot right here .

I guessed LUNAR because not only is it a full moon (the Harvest Moon) we also got the new trailer for Robert Eggers’ Medieval horror film, Werewulf, which looks absolutely insane in the best possible way. And quite scary! Alas, that was not a good opening guess, though SPOIL slashed the 212 words I had left down to just two: SLOPE or SLOOP. And I never guess words with double letters if there’s a better option available, and this came back to haunt me today. Oh well.

I get -1 point for losing to the Bot and zero for guessing in four. The Bot gets 1 point for beating me and another for the incredibly lucky (some might say “sus”) guess in three. Our new September totals are:

I suppose if I win every day I could still come back at this point, but I’m not counting on it!

Today’s Bonus Custom Wordle

One Wordle not enough? I come up with a new custom Wordle every day for you to solve. Here’s today’s.

Today’s Bonus Custom Wordle is 6 letters long.

  • The hint : Contains something in order to transport it.
  • The clue: This Wordle has a double letter.
  • Yesterday’s Custom Wordle Answer : DIRGE

How To Play Competitive Wordle

  • Guessing in 1 is worth 3 points; guessing in 2 is worth 2 points; guessing in 3 is worth 1 point; guessing in 4 is worth 0 points; guessing in 5 is -1 points; guessing in 6 is -2 points and missing the Wordle is -3 points.
  • If you beat your opponent you get 1 point. If you tie, you get 0 points. And if you lose to your opponent, you get -1 point. Add it up to get your score. Keep a daily running score or just play for a new score each day.
  • Fridays are 2XP, meaning you double your points—positive or negative.
  • You can keep a running tally or just play day-by-day. Enjoy!

New Bonus Weekly NYT Games Update

The New York Times launched a new weekly suit of bonus puzzle games for subscribers this week, and the first batch has freebies for non-subscribers also. You can read all about the new twists on the beloved games here , and watch my interview with NYT Games chief, Jonathan Knight below :

Be sure to follow me for all your daily puzzle-solving guides, TV show and movie reviews and more here on this blog !