A new NYT Wordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Wednesday's puzzle instead then click here.
It's time for your guide to today's Wordle answer, featuring my commentary on the latest puzzle, plus a selection of hints designed to help you keep your streak going.
Don't think you need any clues for Wordle today? No problem, just skip to my daily column. But remember: failure in this game is only ever six guesses away.
Want more word-based fun? TechRadar's Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at our NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for our verdict on two of the New York Times' other brainteasers.
SPOILER WARNING: Today's Wordle answer and hints are below, so don't read on if you don't want to see them.
Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief and has been obsessed with Wordle for more than three years. He's authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar and its sister site Tom's Guide, including a detailed analysis of the most common letters in Wordle in every position and a guide to the best Wordle start words. He's also played every Wordle ever and only lost once and yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Wordle hints (game #1405) - clue #1 - Vowels
How many vowels does today's Wordle have?
• Wordle today has vowels in three places*.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
Wordle hints (game #1405) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is G.
G is the eighth most common starting letter, featuring in 115 Wordle answers. It's often paired with an R to make GR--- or an L to make GL---, but I'm not revealing whether that's the case today.
Wordle hints (game #1405) - clue #3 - repeated letters
Does today's Wordle have any repeated letters?
• There are repeated letters in today's Wordle.
Repeated letters are quite common in the game, with 748 of the 2,309 Wordle answers containing one. However, it's still more likely that a Wordle doesn't have one.
Wordle hints (game #1405) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is E.
E is the most common letter to end a Wordle answer by far. That's one of the reasons why many of the best start words, including SLATE, CRANE, CRATE and STARE, all end with one.
Wordle hints (game #1405) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1405.
- Today's Wordle answer is a magic spirit.
If you just want to know today's Wordle answer now, simply scroll down – but I'd always recommend trying to solve it on your own first. We've got lots of Wordle tips and tricks to help you, including a guide to the best Wordle start words.
If you don't want to know today's answer then DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER BECAUSE IT IS PRINTED BELOW. So don't say you weren't warned!
Today's Wordle answer (game #1405)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- My start word performance: CHIDE (33 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (24)
Today's Wordle answer (game #1405) is… GENIE.
Here's another fairly tricky Wordle for you – although it's definitely not as difficult as yesterday's OZONE.
GENIE has an average score of 4.1 at the time of writing, but it's very early in the day in the UK, and not even 'today' yet in the US – so there's a long way to go. Average scores often increase over the course of the day for difficult Wordles, so don't be surprised if this one ends up at 4.2 or even 4.3.
It contains a repeated letter, which usually makes a game harder by default. Yes, that repeated letter is E – the most likely to appear more than once – but it's still less likely than it appearing a single time.
It also has relatively uncommon pairings at the start and end of the word. The GE at the beginning is only found in five out of the original 2,309 solutions, and is a lot less likely than GL or GR.
You might think the IE at the end is more common, meanwhile, but though it's a common pairing elsewhere in a word, it doesn't turn up often at the end – only seven answers have this format.
Put all that together and you have a harder-than-average game that I was content to score a four on.
My start word fared far better today than yesterday, with CHIDE giving me a yellow I and green E, and leaving only 33 options. However, my second guess SMART was, er, not so smart and didn't uncover any extra letters.
Still, my shortlist now had only nine words on it – well, according to WordleBot. My own list had just four: INANE, BELIE, PIXIE and BIBLE. Somehow I missed BINGE, PIQUE, BILGE, LIEGE and GENIE itself, plus BOGIE (which seems a lot less likely).
I played BELIE next, and got lucky. Despite not knowing that all of these other words were possibilities, I accidentally ruled them all out anyway, and was able to play GENIE next for an acceptable four.
How did you do today? Send me an email or let me know in the comments.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1404)
In a different time zone where it's still Wednesday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1404, too.
- Wordle yesterday had vowels in three places.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
- The first letter in yesterday's Wordle answer was O.
Vowels are generally less common than you'd expect at the start of a word, and O is only the 17th most likely letter to begin a Wordle answer.
- There were repeated letters in yesterday's Wordle.
Repeated letters are quite common in the game, with 748 of the 2,309 Wordle answers containing one. However, it's still more likely that a Wordle doesn't have one.
- The last letter in yesterday's Wordle was E.
E is the most common letter to end a Wordle answer by far. That's one of the reasons why many of the best start words, including SLATE, CRANE, CRATE and STARE, all end with one.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1404.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is a gas.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1404)
- NYT average score: 4.3
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- My start word performance: STUMP (1,038 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (13)
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1404) was… OZONE.
This is one of the most interesting answers we've had in a while, from a structural point of view at least. It's also an apt word, given that Tuesday was Earth Day and we're running our own Sustainability Week on TechRadar. Although I suppose it would have been even more apt on Tuesday.
Anyway, JEWEL (game #1,382) is the last Wordle to have both an uncommon letter and a repeated letter, although OZONE is arguably more complicated than that word for a couple of reasons.
For starters, that Z is in a really, really uncommon place. OZONE is one of only two out of the orginal 2,309 Wordle answers to have a -Z--- format, with the other being AZURE, game #832 back in September 2023.
What's more, the two Os sandwich that Z in a really unusual pattern. Now, repeated letters are not exactly uncommon in Wordle – around a third of all games have them.
Nor are repeated vowels themselves unlikely, with E, O and A three of the four most oft-repeated letters.
However, in many cases those letters go together, for instance the OO pattern in BOOST or the EE in CHEEK, or are split close to either end – for instance the many words that have an -E-ER pattern, such as SEVER and FEWER.
You don't often get repeated vowels in positions #1 and #3, though. Among the original words list, only 18 As get repeated in this way, nine Es, seven Is and two Us. There was also a third U-U word – UVULA, which wasn't in the original list but which appeared in game #1,244.
Even by those standards, an O-O pattern at the start is incredibly unusual – to the extent that we've never had one before and there is theoretically only one more to come. And no, I do not know what that future head-scratcher is.
It's probably just as well that there are not more O-O words, because OZONE is a tricky Wordle in its own right. It had an average score of 4.3 at the time of solving, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if that increased over the course of the day.
It will have been slightly easier if you began with CRANE, as WordleBot did, because that left only 13 possible answers. However, I did not; I began with STUMP, and that left 1,038 possible answers. Sucks to be me, right?
Still, my second guess – LONER – did the business, cutting those possibles down by more than 1,000 and leaving only eight choices.
I went with LONER because I am convinced there will be an ER word soon; it's now been more than a month since the last one, TIMER, appeared. My hunch was wrong, of course, but it did give me three yellow letters and cut that shortlist to a manageable size.
I came up with three possible answers, OZONE, ANODE and OCEAN – but missed all of the E-starting words, namely ENVOY, ENJOY, ENDOW and EBONY, plus the less likely (but possible) OVINE.
That was not ideal, and WordleBot duly awarded me a dire skill rating of 60 when I played OCEAN, which seemed the best of my trio.
Fortunately, OCEAN ruled out those four E-led words, and ANODE, leaving me a 50/50 between OZONE and OVINE. I still hadn't thought of the latter, so played the former and scored a respectable four, given my first guess.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I've been playing Wordle every day for more than three years now and have tracked all of the previous answers so I can help you improve your game. Here are the last 50 solutions starting with yesterday's answer, or check out my past Wordle answers page for the full list.
- Wordle #1404, Wednesday 23 April: OZONE
- Wordle #1403, Tuesday 22 April: ARTSY
- Wordle #1402, Monday 21 April: SPATE
- Wordle #1401, Sunday 20 April: PATCH
- Wordle #1400, Saturday 19 April: INBOX
- Wordle #1399, Friday 18 April: DIRGE
- Wordle #1398, Thursday 17 April: STOOD
- Wordle #1397, Wednesday 16 April: MORAL
- Wordle #1396, Tuesday 15 April: ASHEN
- Wordle #1395, Monday 14 April: CREST
- Wordle #1394, Sunday 13 April: LAUGH
- Wordle #1393, Saturday 12 April: NURSE
- Wordle #1392, Friday 11 April: ARROW
- Wordle #1391, Thursday 10 April: TURBO
- Wordle #1390, Wednesday 9 April: WHEAT
- Wordle #1389, Tuesday 8 April: SPARE
- Wordle #1388, Monday 7 April: HAZEL
- Wordle #1387, Sunday 6 April: VILLA
- Wordle #1386, Saturday 5 April: FOAMY
- Wordle #1385, Friday 4 April: KRILL
- Wordle #1384, Thursday 3 April: SHEAR
- Wordle #1383, Wednesday 2 April: CURSE
- Wordle #1382, Tuesday 1 April: JEWEL
- Wordle #1381, Monday 31 March: BOOTY
- Wordle #1380, Sunday 30 March: QUOTA
- Wordle #1379, Saturday 29 March: SORRY
- Wordle #1378, Friday 28 March: VERSE
- Wordle #1377, Thursday 27 March: SHEET
- Wordle #1376, Wednesday 26 March: ELBOW
- Wordle #1375, Tuesday 25 March: SHELF
- Wordle #1374, Monday 24 March: ANGLE
- Wordle #1373, Sunday 23 March: DOPEY
- Wordle #1372, Saturday 22 March: AMBLE
- Wordle #1371, Friday 21 March: NUDGE
- Wordle #1370, Thursday 20 March: BASTE
- Wordle #1369, Wednesday 19 March: SPARK
- Wordle #1368, Tuesday 18 March: TIMER
- Wordle #1367, Monday 17 March: LASSO
- Wordle #1366, Sunday 16 March: STAMP
- Wordle #1365, Saturday 15 March: LADLE
- Wordle #1364, Friday 14 March: PIECE
- Wordle #1363, Thursday 13 March: CHASE
- Wordle #1362, Wednesday 12 March: MANGO
- Wordle #1361, Tuesday 11 March: TRACK
- Wordle #1360, Monday 10 March: SPITE
- Wordle #1359, Sunday 9 March: GREED
- Wordle #1358, Saturday 8 March: NAVEL
- Wordle #1357, Friday 7 March: TROOP
- Wordle #1356, Thursday 6 March: ALERT
- Wordle #1355, Wednesday 5 March: SCRUM
- Wordle #1354, Tuesday 4 March: CHECK
What is Wordle?
If you're on this page then you almost certainly know what Wordle is already, and indeed have probably been playing it for a while. And even if you've not been playing it, you must surely have heard of it by now, because it's the viral word game phenomenon that took the world by storm last year and is still going strong in 2024.
We've got a full guide to the game in our What is Wordle page, but if you just want a refresher then here are the basics.
What is Wordle?
Wordle challenges you to guess a new five-letter word each day. You get six guesses, with each one revealing a little more information. If one of the letters in your guess is in the answer and in the right place, it turns green. If it's in the answer but in the wrong place, it turns yellow. And if it's not in the answer at all it turns gray. Simple, eh?
It's played online via the Wordle website or the New York Times' Crossword app (iOS / Android), and is entirely free.
Crucially, the answer is the same for everyone each day, meaning that you're competing against the rest of the world, rather than just against yourself or the game. The puzzle then resets each day at midnight in your local time, giving you a new challenge, and the chance to extend your streak.
What are the Wordle rules?
The rules of Wordle are pretty straightforward, but with a couple of curveballs thrown in for good measure.
1. Letters that are in the answer and in the right place turn green.
2. Letters that are in the answer but in the wrong place turn yellow.
3. Letters that are not in the answer turn gray.
4. Answers are never plural.
5. Letters can appear more than once. So if your guess includes two of one letter, they may both turn yellow, both turn green, or one could be yellow and the other green.
6. Each guess must be a valid word in Wordle's dictionary. You can't guess ABCDE, for instance.
7. You do not have to include correct letters in subsequent guesses unless you play on Hard mode.
8. You have six guesses to solve the Wordle.
9. You must complete the daily Wordle before midnight in your timezone.
10. All answers are drawn from Wordle's list of 2,309 solutions. However…
11. Wordle will accept a wider pool of words as guesses – some 10,000 of them. For instance, you can guess a plural such as WORDS. It definitely won't be right (see point 4 above), but Wordle will accept it as a guess.
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