By FiveLetterWords · Guide updated . The puzzle date is shown separately.

This page always keeps Wordle #980 for February 24, 2024. Check that number against your game before opening a hint. The answer remains below a separate reveal.

Wordle changes at midnight in your local time zone. For the current local puzzle, use today’s hints. This dated page keeps the same puzzle when the day changes.

Our independent hints use the verified puzzle answer. Play the official game at The New York Times.

Hints for Wordle #980

What kind of word

Wiktionary lists it as a noun.

Vowels and repeats

Two vowels. One letter appears twice.

How it ends

Ends in R.

How it starts

Begins with P.

The middle letter

The middle letter is P.

Reveal the answer and explanation

The answer to Wordle #980 was

PIPER: A musician who plays a pipe.

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.

Word difficulty: Moderate

Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter.

The word rating describes familiarity and letter features. The solver score below measures how a fixed strategy handles the puzzle; an unusual word can still be easy for that strategy.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

Solver pressure: 85/100 (tricky). This is a percentile among past puzzles under the same strategy: 0 is easiest and 100 is hardest for the solver.

127 Possible answers after CRANE
170 Possible answers after SLATE
40 Possible answers after ADIEU
3 Words in the _IPER family
4 Guesses in the solver replay

This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →

Wordle #980, measured

This section compares PIPER's solver-difficulty percentile, first-guess results for ten familiar openers, and opt-in player reports. Each number identifies its dataset.

Solver difficulty, as a percentile

85/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, PIPER measured harder for the solver than about 85% of all 1,952 recorded answers to date. Its rating is tricky. It repeats P; the example solver route takes four turns.

Solver pressure ranks the answer within the pool; it does not measure player performance. The opener table compares first-guess results, and the contributed ratings report player results.

CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU benchmark

RAISE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 27 of the 2,384 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 275 candidates, about 10 times as many.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against PIPER, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
RAISE RAISE 27
ARISE ARISE 36
ADIEU ADIEU 40
SALET SALET 108
TARSE TARSE 116
TRACE TRACE 118
STARE STARE 122
CRANE CRANE 127
SLATE SLATE 170
AUDIO AUDIO 275

“Answers still possible” counts the words in the site's 2,384-word working answer pool whose feedback would match that opener exactly. This is pattern arithmetic, not a simulation. A smaller number means the opener left fewer possible answers after the first guess. It does not describe later turns.

Contributed player ratings

Not enough contributed games to publish player figures for this puzzle. Per-puzzle numbers appear only after at least 10 opt-in games arrive. See how the Observatory collects and publishes player data →

What did you get?

Tap your result to compare it with contributed games. Your choice stays in this browser and is not sent anywhere.

1 Suppressed
2 Suppressed
3 12
4 10
5 Suppressed
6 Suppressed
X Suppressed

The bars pool all 40 contributed games across every completed puzzle. The Observatory does not publish per-puzzle guess distributions below its sample threshold, so this is the broadest available comparison. “Suppressed” marks a low-count cell.

Solver replay

One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to PIPER.

The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for February 24, 2024?
The Wordle answer for February 24, 2024 (puzzle #980) was PIPER.
What does PIPER mean?
PIPER: A musician who plays a pipe.
Why was Wordle #980 tricky?
PIPER is rated moderate for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter.

Keep solving and playing