Thursday! What a concept! It's all downhill from here — in the sense that things get easier as we head towards the July 4 long weekend, not that they get worse. However, the daily Wordledoesn't care what day it is, and will be as hard as it wants. It's certainly more satisfying when you work it out all by yourself, but sometimes you just get stuck — and that's where we come in.

The answer to the June 30 Wordlecan be found at the end of this article, with the spoiler clearly signposted, or you can make your way down in a more leisurely fashion for a few general tips, gentle hints, and strategies to help you every day.

Where did Wordle come from?

Wordleis a daily word game created by Josh Wardle, a Brooklyn-based software engineer who has developed something of a reputation as a crafter of interesting social experiments. Every day, the people of the internet are greeted with a fresh word puzzle that can only be solved — or not! — using a series of process-of-elimination clues.

Thousands of people around the globe now play this game each day, and fans have even created alternatives to Wordleinspired by the original format. This includes music identification game Heardle, Hollywood nerd faves Actorleand Framed, and variations like Dordleand Quordlethat make you guess multiple words at once.

Not the day you're after? You'll find the Wordleanswer for June 29 here.

Look to the future!Here's the Wordle answer for July 1.

What's the best Wordle starting word?

We have some ideas to help you pick the perfect first move (or as close to perfect as you can get without just magically guessing the exact right word). Such tips include choosing a word with at least two different vowels in it, plus a few common consonants such as S, T, R, or N.

Is Wordle getting harder?

If you've been finding Wordletoo easy, there is a Hard Mode you can enable to give yourself more of a challenge. But unless you activate this mode, we can assure you that Wordle isn't getting harder. 

A subtle hint for the June 30 Wordle answer:

It's a noun, usually associated with animals or furniture.

Does today's Wordle word have a double letter?

It does! But not consecutively — in fact, there's only one five-letter word where this letter appears as a consecutive double, and it's a very obscure one. Hope that helps.

What's the answer to Wordle on June 30?

Ready?

• All the tips and tricks you could need to succeed at 'Wordle'
• Hooked on 'Wordle'? You're really going to hate 'Absurdle'.
• Lewdle is the NSFW Wordle clone your dirty mind deserves
• What is Hermit spyware and how do you protect yourself from it?

We'll tell you today's word now.

It's...

HUTCH.

Reporting by Caitlin Welsh, Amanda Yeo and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to today's Wordle.