You're staring at those empty gray boxes. It’s early morning, or maybe late at night, and that tiny bit of adrenaline starts kicking in because you’ve only got two rows left. We have all been there. Finding the Wordle answer September 17 shouldn't feel like a high-stakes poker game, but for some reason, the New York Times always finds a way to make a simple five-letter word feel like a personal insult.
Today was one of those days.
The word isn't particularly "hard" in the sense that it’s some obscure Victorian architectural term. It’s just... tricky. It’s one of those words that hides in plain sight while you’re busy testing out every vowel combination known to man. If you're here because your streak is on life support, don't worry. I’m going to break down what happened today, why the logic might have failed you, and how to actually get better at spotting these patterns before you hit "Enter" on a guess that goes nowhere.
The Reveal: What was the Wordle answer September 17?
Let’s just get it out of the way so you can breathe again. The Wordle answer September 17 is FULLY.
Yeah. It’s a double-letter trap.
Most players start their morning with a heavy-hitter like ADIEU or STARE. If you used STARE today, you likely saw nothing but gray. That is a brutal start. If you’re a fan of the vowel-heavy openers, you might have caught the U, but even then, "U" is a notoriously difficult letter to place. It’s the wildcard of the vowel family.
The real killer here is the double 'L'. In the Wordle world, double letters are the silent assassins of 100-day streaks. Most people’s brains are wired to find five unique letters. We want efficiency. We want to clear the board. When the game requires you to use a letter twice—especially one as common as 'L'—it feels like a waste of a turn until you realize it’s the only path forward.
Why "FULLY" is a Tactical Nightmare
Think about the structure of the word. You have a consonant start, a vowel, a double consonant, and a 'Y' suffix.
The 'Y' is a gift and a curse. On one hand, it’s a very common ending for five-letter words. On the other, if you haven't locked in the middle of the word, you might find yourself guessing things like "FERRY," "FOLLY," or "FUNNY." This is what Wordle pros call a "hard mode trap." If you have the F, the U, and the Y, there are still a handful of words that could fit that skeleton. If you are playing on Hard Mode, where you are forced to use the hints you've found, you can literally run out of turns just cycling through the middle consonants.
Josh Wardle, the original creator of the game, famously curated the initial list of 2,309 words to be "common" enough that most people would know them. But "common" doesn't mean "easy." When the New York Times took over and Tracy Bennett became the editor, the strategy shifted slightly to include words that feel familiar but have structural oddities. FULLY fits that bill perfectly. It’s a word we use every single day—"I'm fully aware," "It’s fully loaded"—but we rarely think about its spelling as a puzzle.
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Breaking Down the Letters
- F: A mid-tier consonant. Not as rare as Z, but not as common as S or T.
- U: The hardest vowel to place. It often sits in the second or third spot, but it can be sneaky.
- L: A powerhouse letter. But in a double-set? It changes the geometry of your guesses.
- Y: The "sometimes" vowel. It’s the anchor. If you get the Y early, you’re usually in good shape.
Honestly, the "LY" ending is a pattern you should be hunting for by guess three if you see yellow or green in those last two columns. It’s a statistical goldmine in the English language.
Strategies That Actually Work for Days Like This
If you struggled today, your starting word might be the culprit. I know, I know—everyone has their "lucky" word. But luck isn't a strategy.
If you’re still using "AUDIO" or "ADIEU," you’re getting vowels, sure, but you’re ignoring the consonants that actually build the framework of the word. Experts like those at WordleBot (the NYT’s own analytical tool) often suggest starting with "CRANE" or "TRACE." Why? Because they balance high-frequency vowels with consonants that actually appear in common suffixes and prefixes.
For the Wordle answer September 17, a word like "SLATE" would have given you the 'L' in the wrong spot. A word like "CLIMB" would have been a total bust.
The "Second Word" Pivot
If your first word is a total wash (all gray), your second word has to be a "reclamation project." You cannot afford to guess letters you’ve already ruled out, but you also shouldn't try to solve the puzzle yet. You need to burn as many common letters as possible.
If you started with STARE and got nothing, your second word should have been something like MOUND or FLICK. Notice how those words use completely different letter sets? FLICK would have given you the F and the L, putting you on the fast track to FULLY.
The Psychology of the Streak
Why do we care so much? It’s just a game, right? Well, not really.
There’s a specific neurological hit—a dopamine spike—when those tiles turn green. According to behavioral psychologists, games like Wordle provide a sense of "micro-mastery." In a world where most things feel chaotic and out of our control, solving a five-letter puzzle in four tries feels like a tangible win.
When you hit a word like FULLY and it takes you five or six tries, it can feel like a failure. But here’s a secret: the game is designed to be a struggle. If every word was "HEART" or "PLANT," you’d get bored and stop playing. The friction is the point. The "LY" words, the double letters, the "vowel-heavy-but-no-consonants" days—that’s what keeps the community talking.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid Tomorrow
Since we’ve survived today, let’s look at how to avoid the same mistakes for the next one.
- Don't Forget the Doubles: Always keep the possibility of a double letter in the back of your mind. If you have "F_L_Y" and nothing seems to fit, try the L again.
- The 'Y' Factor: If you have a 'Y' at the end, the word is often an adverb or an adjective. Think about how words are built.
- Vowel Placement: If you find a 'U', it almost always wants a consonant teammate. It rarely stands alone in the middle of a word without a buddy like 'Q' or a flanking set of consonants.
Semantic Variations of Wordle
If you're a fanatic, you've probably tried the offshoots. There's Quordle (four words at once), Octordle (eight!), and even Heardle (for music). But the original Wordle remains the gold standard because of its simplicity. One word. Once a day.
The Wordle answer September 17 is a reminder that simplicity is often a mask for complexity. You see "FULLY" and think "Duh," but in the heat of the moment, when you have three rows left and the 'L' is yellow, it's a different story.
What to Do Next
If you got it in three, go brag on Twitter (or X, whatever we're calling it now). If it took you six, take a deep breath. You survived.
Here is your checklist for tomorrow's game:
- Review your starting word. Is it giving you enough information? If you got all grays today, it might be time to retire "ADIEU" for a week and try "SLATE."
- Check the "Archive." If you're really obsessed, you can find unofficial Wordle archives online to practice past puzzles. It helps you recognize the "patterns" that the NYT editors prefer.
- Watch for the "ER" and "ING" traps. Much like the "LY" in FULLY, these endings are common and can lead you into a "Hard Mode" death spiral if you aren't careful.
The beauty of Wordle is that there’s always a tomorrow. Your streak might have ended, or it might have stayed alive by the skin of its teeth, but the board resets at midnight.
Go get some coffee. You've earned it.
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Actionable Insight: To improve your Wordle game immediately, stop trying to "solve" the word on line two. Use your first two guesses to eliminate at least 10 unique letters. This statistical approach significantly reduces the "guessing game" on lines four, five, and six. Even if you think you know the word on line two, if it has common neighbors (like "LIGHT" which could be MIGHT, FIGHT, RIGHT, SIGHT), it is mathematically safer to use a "filler" word to eliminate those starting consonants first.