Today’s Wordle Answer and Hints for March 31 (#1016)

Stuck and need the answer to today’s wordle? We’ve got you covered. We have some hints for the Wordle, in case you’d like to take another crack at it yourself before we tell you. If you want to get straight to the answer, tap or click “What is Today’s Wordle Answer” in the table of contents.

We’ll update this article daily. The hints and answers today are for March 31, 2024, or Wordle #1016. The answer to yesterday’s Wordle—#1015—was Force.

Hints for Today’s Wordle

Here are some hints to help you guess the answer without giving away too much:

• There are three vowels.
• There are repeated letters.
• Not in polite company.

What Letter Does Today’s Wordle Start With?

Still stuck? The first letter of today’s Wordle is T.

What Is Today’s Wordle Answer?

The answer to the Wordle on March 30th is: Taboo.

Merriam-Webster defines taboo as “banned on grounds of morality or taste” or “something that is not acceptable to say, mention, or do.”

You might see it as used like: “He said and did the unthinkable without hesitation, violating every taboo there was.”

Unlike most words in English, taboo originates from Tongan, a Polynesian language.

What Were the Previous Wordle Answers?

If you missed a game, here is a list of Wordle answers from the last week.

How Do You Get Wordle?

The most important thing you can do to finish a Wordle without running out of guesses is to pick a great starting word.

Mathematicians, linguists, and cryptographers have all attempted to suss out which word is the best to start a Wordle, and there are plenty of well-reasoned opinions out there. A duo of researchers from MIT published a paper that concluded that salet is the best first word you can pick. The New York Times itself recommends slate, crane, or trace. A programmer, Tyler Glaiel, narrowed it down to roate and raise. So, if you’re looking just to try some words out, consider:

• Salet
• Crane
• Slate
• Trace
• Roate
• Raise

If you don’t want to use those, however, here are some ways to pick your own openers.

1. Try to guess multiple vowels with your first word. E is the most common vowel in English, and your first word should include it.
2. Stay away from J, Q, and Z. In general, if the letter is one you’d be happy to play in Scrabble, you don’t want it to be in the first word you guess for Wordle, since the value of Scrabble letters roughly indicate how rare they are.
3. Try to include some of the other most common letters, like A, I, S, R, T, or L.

I typically start with the word raise for those reasons, and that is a choice backed by some number crunchers. A good second guess depends on how well your first word did. If you got nothing with raise, for example, you should just assume that O and U are the vowels in the word and guess accordingly.

What Are the Best Wordle Alternatives?

The viral success of Wordle has lead to a ton of Wordle alternatives and clones. Some of our immediate favorites are:

• Quordle – Much like Wordle, but you have to solve four words simultaneously.
• Octordle – Another game very similar to Wordle, but you have to solve eight words.
• Skribbl.io – Skribbl is a bit like an online Pictionary. One person draws, and then everyone has to guess what they drew.
• Hangman – Hangman is a classic word game. You have a limited number of guesses to figure out a word, or you lose.
• Waffle – Waffle is reminiscent of a mashup of Scrabble and Wordle. You have to rearrange letters on a Waffle space to spell six different words.
• Tradle – Instead of guessing words, you guess countries based on their exports.

This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, either. There are a ton out there now. Discord, a communications app popular among gamers, has a few word games built into it that you can play with your friends. The New York Times also has other games you can try, like Spelling Bee, or Connections.