Honestly, some mornings you just want a quick win with your coffee before the chaos of the day starts. Then a word like the one in Wordle today August 21 shows up and suddenly you’re staring at a grid of gray tiles, questioning your entire vocabulary.
If you’re currently on your fourth guess and starting to sweat, you aren’t alone. Today’s puzzle—officially Wordle 1524—is one of those "goldilocks" words. It isn’t necessarily obscure, but it isn’t exactly what you’d call common in everyday Slack messages or grocery lists either.
The Secret to Cracking Wordle Today August 21
Let's look at the structure. Most people start with heavy hitters like ADIEU or STARE. If you used those today, you probably saw a yellow 'E' or 'T' pop up, but the placement is where the real headache begins.
The Wordle answer today is a five-letter verb. It has two vowels, and they aren’t where you think they are.
Need a Hint?
Before I just give it away, here are a few nudges:
- Vowels: There are two of them (E and O).
- Starting Letter: It begins with the letter E.
- Ending Letter: It ends with the letter L.
- Meaning: It’s a fancy way to say you’re praising someone or something very highly. Think of a graduation speech or a review for a five-star restaurant.
If you’ve got E _ T _ L on your screen, you’re basically there.
The Answer Revealed
The answer for Wordle today August 21 is EXTOL.
Yeah, EXTOL. It’s a great word, but let’s be real: how often do you actually say it? You might praise a movie, but you rarely "extol its virtues" unless you’re writing a formal essay. That "X" in the second position is the real killer. It’s one of the rarest letters in the game, and unless you’re a fan of starting words like XYLYL (which, please don't), you probably didn't find it until your later guesses.
Why Today’s Word is Scientifically Annoying
The New York Times Games editor, Tracy Bennett, has a knack for picking words that feel just slightly out of reach. According to data analysis from tools like WordleBot, words with an 'X' in the second slot have a much lower "solve-in-three" rate than words with a standard 'R' or 'S'.
In fact, the letter 'X' is the third least frequent letter in the Wordle dictionary. When you combine an uncommon letter with a vowel-start like 'E', the number of possible word combinations drops significantly, but so does your intuition.
A Quick History Lesson
It's wild to think how far this game has come. Back in 2021, Josh Wardle—a software engineer who formerly worked at Reddit—created this as a simple gift for his partner, Palak Shah. She actually helped curate the original list of about 2,500 words by filtering out the super-obscure stuff from the 13,000 five-letter words in the English language.
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When the NYT bought it for a "low seven-figure sum" in early 2022, everyone panicked that it would get harder. It hasn't really gotten harder, but the "word of the day" definitely hits different when you’re on a 100-day streak and a word like EXTOL threatens to end it all.
Better Starting Words for Tomorrow
If today was a struggle, you might want to switch up your strategy. While ADIEU is popular for hunting vowels, it often fails to give you the consonant structure you need. Many pros are moving toward CRANE or SLATE.
- CRANE: High-frequency consonants (C, R, N) and the two most common vowels.
- SLATE: Great for finding the 'S' and 'T', which are everywhere in the Wordle dictionary.
- AUDIO: If you’re a vowel-first person, this is still your best bet.
Strategy for 2026 and Beyond
The best way to play isn't just guessing. It's about "burning" letters. If you know the word ends in _IGHT, don't keep guessing SIGHT, MIGHT, and FIGHT. You'll run out of turns. Instead, guess a word like FORMS to check the F, M, and S all at once. It feels like a wasted turn, but it saves your streak.
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Your Actionable Move:
To keep your streak alive after today's brush with EXTOL, spend two minutes tonight looking at the "least common" Wordle letters: X, Z, J, and Q. If you find yourself stuck with four greens and one gray, don't just guess alphabetically. Think about whether one of those rare "trash letters" could be the missing piece.