Today’s Wordle answer is so hard it nearly cost me my 1,045-game streak – and it’s all the NYT’s fault

Having a very, very long Wordle streak is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it grants me immense bragging rights over those mere mortals with their streaks in the hundreds. On the other, it turns every game into a must-win ordeal. After all, what would I be without my Wordle streak? A so-called ‘expert’ with no credentials, that’s what. I’d be laughed out of town.

I joke, of course, but having gone 1,046 games without a loss I would rather not give up my streak all the same. I nearly had to today, though, because game #1,244 (Thursday, 14 November) nearly sent me back to ground zero.

I’m pretty sure I won’t be the only one, though – because today’s Wordle answer is undoubtedly a very difficult one. And it’s all the fault of the New York Times’ puzzle setters.

To explain why, I’ll need to reveal the solution, so don’t read past this point if you haven’t played yet, because SPOILERS FOR TODAY’S WORDLE, GAME #1,244, ON THURSDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2024 will follow. You have been warned.

Wordle hall of shame

Let’s start with a question: what’s the hardest Wordle ever? Is it CAULK, one of the first games to upset thousands of avid Wordlers soon after the game’s meteoric rise to prominence? Or maybe BORAX, a word that many players outside of the United States had almost no knowledge of? Or JAZZY, with its repeated Zs and very-uncommon J at the start?

None of those, actually – the toughest ever is PARER, game #454 in September 2022. That’s based on the fact that it had an average score of 6.3, which to put it in context is half a guess more than its closest competitor, MUMMY (#491, 5.8).

Those average scores come from WordleBot, the in-game AI helper tool that analyzes your…