Yesterday's Jumble Answer
Stuck on today's cartoon punchline? You're in the right place. Untangle each scrambled word first, or jump straight to the full answer. Nothing spoils until you tap.
Hints, one at a time
Welcome back, puzzler. The Daily Jumble for Monday, August 31, 2026 is live: 4 scrambled words to untangle, then their circled letters combine into one cartoon punchline answer.
Here's how this page works: the five hints below start with the shape of the puzzle and end with the shape of the punchline, so reveal them one at a time and stop the moment something clicks. The full answer sits in the amber box further down, locked behind a tap. Nothing here reveals itself on its own, not an unscrambled word and not the punchline.
Letters first, punchline shape last. Stop when the joke writes itself.
Drumroll, please…
Daily Jumble Answer for August 31
Spoiler below · tap to revealBLAZE
FISHY
STENCH
BAKING
The cartoon punchline, one tile at a time:
Word 1
Word 2
Word 3
Tap a scramble or a tile to reveal it, or show everything at once.
About yesterday's puzzle SEE IT AGAIN
Word 1 (BLAZE): A, E · Word 2 (FISHY): I, S · Word 3 (STENCH): T, E, N · Word 4 (BAKING): A, I, G
The final answer is worth 11 points in Scrabble (letters only, before any bonus squares).
3 words totaling 10 letters: 3 + 2 + 5.
Published Monday, August 31, 2026, with 4 scrambles feeding one cartoon punchline.
Jumble strategy that actually helps
Proven habits from top solvers, useful today and every day.
Suffixes like -ING, -TION, -ED, -ER and -LY appear constantly. Spot those letters in a scramble and try locking them at the end.
Most six-letter Jumble words carry two vowels. Pull all the vowels out of the scramble first, then think of common words that use them together.
The final answer is always built from circled letters, and it's always a pun tied to the cartoon. Reading the caption closely often points straight at the answer's shape.
Words range from straightforward to tricky. Crack the one that clicks first, note its circled letters, and let those confirmed letters narrow the rest.
If your arrangement of the circled letters makes a real phrase that connects to the cartoon, that's the answer, even when it sounds like a groan-worthy joke.
Once you know how many letters each word in the final answer needs, that structure narrows down which arrangement of circled letters actually fits.
Prefer to crack it yourself? Paste any scramble into our word unscrambler and get every word those letters can spell, instantly and spoiler-free for the rest of this page.
How to play Daily Jumble
The rules in full, for anyone arriving without them.
Daily Jumble has run in newspapers since 1954. You unscramble a set of ordinary words, and the letters that land in circled squares get rearranged one more time to answer a pun set up by the day's cartoon.
- 1 Unscramble the short words first
The five and six letter scrambles usually fall out fastest, and every one you solve hands you circled letters.
- 2 Collect the circled letters
Each solved word contributes the letters sitting in its circles. Together they form the raw material for the final answer.
- 3 Read the cartoon and its caption
The caption sets up a pun. Knowing roughly what the joke needs to say narrows the final anagram enormously.
- 4 Rearrange the circled letters into the punchline
The board shows how many words the answer has and how long each one is, so match that shape as you work.
Tribune Content Agency, created by Martin Naydel
Four to six scrambled words plus one cartoon punchline
No limit
Daily, alongside the newspaper edition
The punchline is always a pun, never a plain statement. If your rearranged letters spell something sensible but not funny, you have almost certainly mis-solved one of the scrambles above it.
Daily Jumble, answered
Quick answers to the questions we get every day.
What time does the new Jumble come out?
Jumble resets at midnight in your local timezone, wherever you are. Jumble follows the newspaper's schedule, so syndicated print editions can run a day behind the online puzzle.
How do the circled letters work?
Certain letters in each unscrambled word are circled. Pull just those letters out, in order, and rearrange them (they're scrambled too) to spell the words that complete the cartoon's punchline caption.
Can I play past Jumble puzzles?
Jumble doesn't offer an in-app archive the way some other daily games do. Our past answers table below collects the punchlines we have covered so far.
Do the circled letters come out in the right order?
Never, by design. The circled letters are raw material for a second anagram, not a pre-assembled answer, so reading them straight off the page almost always produces nonsense. Solve every scrambled word first, pool the circled letters, then rearrange them against the word lengths shown under the cartoon.
Why is the final answer always a pun?
That's the format: Jumble's cartoon caption sets up a joke, and the circled letters spell out the punchline. It's part word puzzle, part dad joke, by design.
Today's hints for every game
Same spoiler-safe format, for each daily puzzle we cover.
Past Jumble answers
Recent Jumble final answers, organized by month. Use it to check a day you missed or settle an argument about a past punchline. Today's punchline stays blurred until you tap it.
| Date | Puzzle | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 01Today | #1 | STILL MARRIED |
| Aug 31 | #2 | SEE IT AGAIN |
| Aug 30 | #3 | GOING{, }GOING{, }GONE |
| Aug 29 | #4 | TOO MUCH DRAMA |
| Aug 28 | #5 | 'BEE{- }LEAGUERED |
| Aug 27 | #6 | INDISPOSED |
| Aug 26 | #7 | 'ROAD' SCHOLAR |
| Aug 25 | #8 | GREW SOME |
| Aug 24 | #9 | SWAMPED |
| Aug 23 | #10 | 'PLANE' AND SIMPLE |
| Aug 22 | #11 | 'WHEEL' ESTATE |
| Aug 21 | #12 | VACANT STARE |
| Aug 20 | #13 | REIN IN THE RAIN |
| Aug 19 | #14 | 'BYE{- }STANDERS' |
| Aug 18 | #15 | MUSCLE MEMORY |
| Aug 17 | #16 | SHEAR JOY |
| Aug 16 | #17 | HIGHLY 'SOD' AFTER |
| Aug 15 | #18 | 'FIND{- }DING' OUT |
| Aug 14 | #19 | 'RUFF{- }HOUSING' |
| Aug 13 | #20 | A SHOW OF HANDS |
| Aug 12 | #21 | PULL THE PLUG |
| Aug 11 | #22 | 'SITE{- }SEEING' |
| Aug 10 | #23 | LOAF AROUND |
| Aug 09 | #24 | STILL GOING STRONG |
| Aug 08 | #25 | SO FAR{, }SO GOOD |
| Aug 07 | #26 | HATS OFF TO YOU |
| Aug 06 | #27 | OPEN AND SHUT |
| Aug 05 | #28 | SPEND THE NIGHT |
| Aug 04 | #29 | DISCARDED |
| Aug 03 | #30 | STAND OUT |
| Aug 02 | #31 | GREENER 'PASTORS' |
| Aug 01 | #32 | 'SUB{- }MISSION' |
| Jul 31 | #33 | TRY TO SWING IT |
| Jul 30 | #34 | 'FOREWORD' TO IT |
| Jul 29 | #35 | ILL{- }ADVISED |
| Jul 28 | #36 | 'MOO{- }ED' SWINGS |
| Jul 27 | #37 | EGG THEM ON |
| Jul 26 | #38 | THE SALT OF THE EARTH |
| Jul 25 | #39 | DRIVEN MAD |
| Jul 24 | #40 | 'AFTERWORDS' |
| Jul 23 | #41 | PLANT MANAGER |
| Jul 22 | #42 | 'LOW' AND BEHOLD |
| Jul 21 | #43 | BOOKED SOLID |
| Jul 20 | #44 | ONE 'PER{- }CENT' |
| Jul 19 | #45 | BIG{- }TIME ATTRACTION |
| Jul 18 | #46 | 'HOLES' STORY |
| Jul 17 | #47 | PERKED HER UP |
| Jul 05 | #48 | BAD TABLE MANNERS |
| Jun 28 | #49 | IT REMAINS TO BE SEEN |
| Jun 21 | #50 | 'WEIGH' WITH WORDS |
| Jun 14 | #51 | BENT OUT OF SHAPE |
| Jun 07 | #52 | BIRDS OF A FEATHER |
| May 31 | #53 | STABLE ENVIRONMENT |
| May 17 | #54 | WORKING IN 'SINK' |
| May 10 | #55 | ATTEMPTING OFFER |