Today's Wordle hint and answer on Wednesday 4th September for 1173

You've made it to Wednesday! If you need a little extra help keeping your streak up, we can help you work out the Wordle answer for today, 4th September 2024.

For the uninitiated, the aim of Wordle is to work out a daily five-letter word within six guesses. The fewer the guesses, the better - and if you fail to guess it at all, you'll break your streak.

The latter is why working out today's Wordle answer is such a priority, as players pride themselves on keeping their streak going. So why gamble on a risky final guess when you can learn a few clues and, failing that, get the definitive answer? This page can help with that.

Once you have today's word, learn more about Wordle and how the New York Times became interested in games in this interview with Jonathan Knight, Head of Games for the NYTimes. In keeping with the word theme, we've also discussed why The NYTimes Mini Crossword is a reliable joy.

Clues for today's Wordle answer

Instead of going straight to the answer, you might only need a few hints to get you over the line:

• Today's word has one vowel in it.
• There are no repeating letters in this word.
• This word starts with 'S'.
• This word is the name of a company that makes pinball machines.

Still not sure? Read on for the answer.

Wordle answer for word 1173 on 4th September 2024

Even with the above clues, still not sure and want to keep that streak going?

The Wordle answer today is STERN.

I started today's Wordle off with the risky 'LIONS', which did at least give me two yellow letters. From there, I tried 'SNAKE' and then 'SHEEN', the latter of which gave me enough green letters to get 'STERN' on my fourth try.

Now you have the answer, do not spoil it for others! Remember, you can share your results spoiler-free in the form of a grid.

Of course, no one has to know you came to this page to work it out. Maybe put in two or three fake guesses first to throw them off the scent, perhaps?

Today's Wordle etymology

'Stern' the adjective comes from the Middle English term that could also have been spelled as 'sterne' or 'sturne'. This came from the Old English word 'styrne', which comes from the Proto-Germanic word 'sturnijaz', meaning angry or astonished, which dates all the way back to Proto-Indo-European's 'ster-', meaning rigid or stiff.

Wordle past answers for this week

And now for our 'Previously on Wordle' segement! (I know 'in' works better, but let me have this...) This week has seen the following words make appearance in Wordle so far:

• Tuesday 3rd September - FAINT
• Monday 2nd September - CAMEL

If you'd like to know all of the words which has graced Wordle in times gone by, check out our past Wordle answers archive.

What to play after Wordle

With your daily Wordle completed, the question is - what shall you play now?

You can, of course, try out the other word-based games offered by the New York Times, like Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword and Letter Boxed. You can also take a crack at Connections, the daily Sudokus and Tiles - a rather additive motif matching game.

There’s also a range of games which have put a twist on the Wordle formula. Squaredle challenges you to find a series of words by connecting letters in a four by four grid. Meanwhile Dordle, Quorodly, Octordly and Sedecordle all keep to the standard Wordle, while increasing the number of words you have to find. The challenge comes in how your guesses count for all of the words, so you need to decide whether you’re going to focus on a specific word or try to solve multiple words at the same time. Thankfully, the number of guesses you’re given increases alongside the amount of words you’re expected to solve.

If you want a break from spelling though, try GeoGuessr. Here you’ll be given a picture of somewhere, anywhere, in the world and have to place a marker on where you think that location is. There’s even an Old School RuneScape version.

Hope you enjoyed playing Wordle today!