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 Sunday's puzzle instead then click here.
Skip the hints and jump straight to today's column.
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.
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 #1640) - clue #1 - Vowels
How many vowels does today's Wordle have?
• Wordle today has a vowel in one place*.
* 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 #1640) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is D.
D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.
Wordle hints (game #1640) - 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 #1640) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Wordle hints (game #1640) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1640.
- Today's Wordle answer is suspicious, unreliable or evasive.
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 #1640)
- NYT average score: 4.6
- My score: 3
- WordleBot's score: 4
- My skill score: 96
- My luck score: 38
- My start word performance: SANER (304 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (315)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Today's Wordle answer (game #1640) is… DODGY.
I suspect this one is going to cause a few problems for the Americans among you today, because DODGY is a quintessentially British word that, as far as I know, is not used anywhere near as often in the US.
In the UK, it's probably spoken (or written) by most people on a daily basis, as in 'I can't believe he ate that dodgy kebab last night, he must have been totally wasted' or 'Don't trust that geezer down the pub selling tickets for the match tomorrow, he's well dodgy'. I use it all the time and I love it. I even once lived with a guy whose nickname was Dodge, because, well, he was a bit dodgy.
I'm sure Americans understand it and even use it sometimes – and how much they do so may depend on where in the States they're based. But either way, it's likely to be a little harder than some on account of its relative uncommonness.
Of course there's another reason why DODGY has a super-high average score of 4.6 today, and that would be the repeated D. Oh, and also the fact that the likes of DOGGY, DOLLY, FOGGY and DOWDY might have occurred sooner than the eventual answer.
Somehow, I scored a three, beating WordleBot in the process. In fact, I'm going to take this opportunity to crow a little – because in the past 24 days I've beaten the 'Bot eight times, been equal with it 11 times, and only lost on five occasions. Some of that is due to luck, sure, but it happens rarely enough that I'll take it. (And yes, I'm only looking at the past 24 days because if I go back any further than that my win-loss record suddenly takes a nose-dive…)
I can't thank my start word, SANER, because that left 304 options. Nor my second guess, CLOUT, which gave me only a single yellow O to play with and still left 20 possibles. No, it was all the work of my third guess – which was incredibly fortunate, albeit with a dash of skill thrown in too.
I didn't come up with all 20 choices, instead finding just under half of them: IDIOM, DOGGY, DODGY, DOWDY, FOGGY, PODGY, BOGGY, HOWDY and POPPY. I knew the latter had been a past Wordle answer, but couldn't recall the others and obviously spotted right away that most contained a Y plus either a D, a G or both.
So, with that in mind I played DODGY. The idea was to confirm the general format and also to see whether either of those consonants was included. And I figured I'd put the D in twice because some of the words had it at the start and others elsewhere.
The 'Bot liked it well enough, giving me 90 for skill, but it definitely was lucky – 97 for luck. And that's fair enough, because it ended up being the answer, meaning that anyone looking at my game today might suspect it's a little, well, dodgy.
In a different time zone where it's still Sunday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1639, too.
- Wordle yesterday had a vowel in one place.
* 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 S.
S is the most common starting letter in the game, featuring in 365 of Wordle's 2,309 answers. In fact, it's almost twice as likely to begin an answer as the next most common starting letter, C.
- There were no 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 G.
G is not a common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only 41 of Wordle's 2,309 games finish with one.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1639.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is to move to and fro, or oscillate.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1639)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 4
- My skill score: 94
- My luck score: 52
- My start word performance: SANER (31 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (70)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1639) was… SWING.
Getting a green S at the start of a word can be a mixed blessing. There are 16 letters that can follow an S at the start of a Wordle, a clear majority of the alphabet given that (not counting S itself) there are only nine that can't follow it. And that can make it difficult to narrow down the opening combination and start forming the answer even if your start word is SLATE or STARE or indeed SANER as mine is.
That goes some way to explaining the relatively high average of 4.0 for SWING, although the presence of a W and (to an extent) a G are also contributing factors.
The W in particular is annoying – it tends to be one of the possibilities that I spend the least amount of time considering whenever I see an S at the start of a word. That's probably because as a letter in its own right, it's uncommon – the sixth least likely ahead of only V, Z, X, Q and J.
However, after an S it's actually pretty common – as the table below shows.
First 2 letters | Frequency |
|---|---|
ST | 65 |
SH | 52 |
SP | 45 |
SC | 29 |
SL | 27 |
SA | 23 |
SW | 23 |
SN | 18 |
SM | 15 |
SE | 14 |
SO | 14 |
SI | 13 |
SU | 13 |
SK | 9 |
SQ | 3 |
SY | 2 |
That's right, there are 23 words that begin SW, a total that puts it at equal 26th among starting pairs overall. Given that there are 214 distinct combinations across the game's 2,309 original solutions, it's at the top end of the table for sure.
In fact, it's more common than SN and SM, two combos I always look for, and more likely than S followed by any vowel other than A. I really need to give it more credit.
Instead, I played COUNT as my second guess – a word that was designed to rule out as many of those opening pairs as possible, but that includes the less likely (after an S) O, U and N.
Of course, the benefit of playing generally common letters is that one might appear somewhere else instead, and indeed the N did – turning green near the end of the word and cutting my initial 31 options to five.
At this point I did consider the W, because those five words included SWING as well as SLINK, SLING, SPINY and SHINY. However, I decided to go with SLING instead, and had to finally fill the W-shaped gap on the fourth 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 #1639, Sunday 14 December: SWING
- Wordle #1638, Saturday 13 December: MISER
- Wordle #1637, Friday 12 December: TRUCK
- Wordle #1636, Thursday 11 December: GUESS
- Wordle #1635, Wednesday 10 December: ERASE
- Wordle #1634, Tuesday 9 December: SNIDE
- Wordle #1633, Monday 8 December: GRAVY
- Wordle #1632, Sunday 7 December: FLUTE
- Wordle #1631, Saturday 6 December: WAIST
- Wordle #1630, Friday 5 December: WAIST
- Wordle #1629, Thursday 4 December: TULIP
- Wordle #1628, Wednesday 3 December: HASTE
- Wordle #1627, Tuesday 2 December: CACTI
- Wordle #1626, Monday 1 December: LEACH
- Wordle #1625, Sunday 30 November: MUGGY
- Wordle #1624, Saturday 29 November: GRUFF
- Wordle #1623, Friday 28 November: COLIC
- Wordle #1622, Thursday 27 November: REMIT
- Wordle #1621, Wednesday 26 November: HOVEL
- Wordle #1620, Tuesday 25 November: PLEAD
- Wordle #1619, Monday 24 November: DOUGH
- Wordle #1618, Sunday 23 November: BUNNY
- Wordle #1617, Saturday 22 November: THICK
- Wordle #1616, Friday 21 November: VOWEL
- Wordle #1615, Thursday 20 November: GRAVE
- Wordle #1614, Wednesday 19 November: MAKER
- Wordle #1613, Tuesday 18 November: OPINE
- Wordle #1612, Monday 17 November: CLAMP
- Wordle #1611, Sunday 16 November: WIELD
- Wordle #1610, Saturday 15 November: CLUNG
- Wordle #1609, Friday 14 November: LURID
- Wordle #1608, Thursday 13 November: TINGE
- Wordle #1607, Wednesday 12 November: DEUCE
- Wordle #1606, Tuesday 11 November: GIZMO
- Wordle #1605, Monday 10 November: TABBY
- Wordle #1604, Sunday 9 November: FUGUE
- Wordle #1603, Saturday 8 November: ARISE
- Wordle #1602, Friday 7 November: PERIL
- Wordle #1601, Thursday 6 November: GUISE
- Wordle #1600, Wednesday 5 November: SHORT
- Wordle #1599, Tuesday 4 November: VENUE
- Wordle #1598, Monday 3 November: AWOKE
- Wordle #1597, Sunday 2 November: RABID
- Wordle #1596, Saturday 1 November: MOTEL
- Wordle #1595, Friday 31 October: ABHOR
- Wordle #1594, Thursday 30 October: LATHE
- Wordle #1593, Wednesday 29 October: GLARE
- Wordle #1592, Tuesday 28 October: HOLLY
- Wordle #1591, Monday 27 October: FETID
- Wordle #1590, Sunday 26 October: PLUMP
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 in 2022 and is still going strong in 2025.
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' Games 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.
4a. Answers are never plural.
4b. …unless they are. There have been a couple of plural words that don't end in an S or ES, including FUNGI (game #439), ATRIA (#1478) and TEETH (#1551). But S and ES plurals are definitely outlawed.
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.
10a. All answers are drawn from Wordle's list of 2,309 solutions…
10b. …unless they are not. That's because the NYT has added in some of its own words which weren't in that list of 2,309 solutions. More will undoubtedly come over the next few years.
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 4a above), but Wordle will accept it as a guess.
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