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? My Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, which remains the best of all the main Wordle alternatives.
SPOILER WARNING: Today’s Wordle answer and hints are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.
Wordle hints (game #1,022) – 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 #1,022) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is F.
F is a very common starting letter in Wordle. It ranks seventh behind only S, C, B, T, P and A and overall there are 135 solutions that begin with this letter.
Wordle hints (game #1,022) – clue #3 – repeated letters
Does today’s Wordle have any repeated letters?
• There are no 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 #1,022) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is H.
H is a regular visitor to the final spot in a Wordle word. It occurs 137 times at the end of a Wordle answer, making it the sixth most common letter there.
Wordle hints (game #1,022) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1022.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a bird.
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 #1,022)
- NYT average score: 4.6
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: TRICE (7 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: HARRY (166)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1,022) is… FINCH.
Just when you think this game is too easy a difficult Wordle arrives to pull the rug out from under your feet. FINCH has an average score of 4.6, according to WordleBot, which makes it the toughest game since HUNCH a month ago. Yes, worse than SALLY, worse than LINGO, worse than MAYOR.
That may seem surprising. But while there’s no repeated letter as there is in SALLY, it does have the HUNCH problem of there being several similarly spelled answers, in this case WINCH, PINCH and CINCH. FINCH is arguably the least common of them, but we don’t need to rely on instinct here – we can see what the experts say. The WordAndPhraseInfo website lists the frequency of words within the English language, and by that measure FINCH is indeed the least common: it’s 20,933rd, whereas WINCH is 20,302nd, CINCH is 18,882nd and PINCH is 7,878th.
That said, F is more common as a letter than W, so it might have turned up earlier in your game. Then again, as I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, it’s still only the 19th most likely letter to appear in the game.
I somehow managed to score a 3/6, whereas WordleBot only managed another 4/6 (my heart bleeds for it). That owed nothing to my start word, though – which was only marginally helpful. HARRY left 166 possible solutions, compared to the 18 left for those of you (including WordleBot) who started with CRANE. Instead, the hard work in my game was done by my second word.
With a yellow H uncovered I was fairly sure it would go at the end of a word, after either T, S or C. I decided to play SHIFT, because it would allow me to include two of those three letters. I nearly went for CHEST – which would have had all three – but doing that would have needed me to swap the I for an E. E is incredibly common at the end of a word, but I already had an inkling that H would be there, so playing I was more sensible as it’s more likely to be in the middle.
The F was something of a passenger here, then, but it was its presence that made the difference. SHIFT turned both the F and I yellow, which left me only two possible solutions: FINCH and FILCH.
There was no reason for me not to guess outright at this stage, because I’d score at least a 4/6 either way. FINCH seemed a more likely answer, so I went with that and was rewarded with a well-above-par 3/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1,021)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1,021, 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 W.
W is a fairly average letter when it comes to starting an answer. There are 82 solutions that begin with a W, with means that it ranks 13th – so right in the middle of the alphabet.
- 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 T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1,021.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is part of the body.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1,021)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 4
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- Best start word performance*: TRICE (6 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SNUCK (179)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1,021) was… WRIST.
Behold! The rare example of WordleBot scoring lower than the average for a game. Yes, the supposedly all-knowing ‘bot had to settle for a 4/6 today on a day when the mean was 3.6. I don’t think it made any major mistakes, though – it’s just one of those words where some people will have struggled to narrow it down quickly enough.
The same happened to me: a 4/6 where I didn’t do anything particularly wrong but where my start word left me with too much to do. It’s a common word made up of four common letters in (generally) common places, plus… the letter W. This isn’t among the most common of everything; it ranks 21st overall, and 13th when used at the start of a word.
That aside, there are no complications here. As I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, R is the third most common letter in the game, and the third most common when used in the second position. I, S and T are all top 10 letters too.
Only one of those was in my random start word SNUCK, though, and I still had 179 options left for my second guess. However, I did have some clues about where that S might go, and that in turned influenced my next move.
When not used at the start of an answer, S invariably appears fourth; it’s more common there than it is in the second, third and fifth positions combined. That’s because it regularly pairs with T or H, so I decided to work on that assumption and in turn include only one vowel, A. Adding the common-in-most-places L, plus the common-at-the-start B, gave me BLAST.
WordleBot was impressed, calling it a “wonderful choice”, but pointed out that it was unlucky today and still left 19 answers. But it did give me that ST ending, so I was well on the way.
I came up with quite a few of those 19, including MOIST, GRIST, WRIST, WORST, FROST, FIRST and TRYST, so GRIMY was my attempt to cover as many of those as I could in one guess; no need to include the S and T given that I already knew they were correct. The plan worked, with the R and I turning green to leave me with -RIST. With the G now ruled out, it couldn’t be GRIST, so I played WRIST for my 4/6.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than two 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 #1021, Friday 5 April: WRIST
- Wordle #1020, Thursday 4 April: CLIMB
- Wordle #1019, Wednesday 3 April: PLAIT
- Wordle #1018, Tuesday 2 April: SERUM
- Wordle #1017, Monday 1 April: FROND
- Wordle #1016, Sunday 31 March: TABOO
- Wordle #1015, Saturday 30 March: FORCE
- Wordle #1014, Friday 29 March: REALM
- Wordle #1013, Thursday 28 March: SPEAK
- Wordle #1012, Wednesday 27 March: STUNG
- Wordle #1011, Tuesday 26 March: MAYOR
- Wordle #1010, Monday 25 March: SALLY
- Wordle #1009, Sunday 24 March: TOWEL
- Wordle #1008, Saturday 23 March: RISEN
- Wordle #1007, Friday 22 March: DECAY
- Wordle #1006, Thursday 21 March: SHADE
- Wordle #1005, Wednesday 20 March: LINGO
- Wordle #1004, Tuesday 19 March: ABIDE
- Wordle #1003, Monday 18 March: SPELT
- Wordle #1002, Sunday 17 March: SNORT
- Wordle #1001, Saturday 16 March: TOXIN
- Wordle #1000, Friday 15 March: ERUPT
- Wordle #999, Thursday 14 March: SINCE
- Wordle #998, Wednesday 13 March: LOCAL
- Wordle #997, Tuesday 12 March: HEAVE
- Wordle #996, Monday 11 March: PESKY
- Wordle #995, Sunday 10 March: GRASP
- Wordle #994, Saturday 9 March: CHEER
- Wordle #993, Friday 8 March: EARLY
- Wordle #992, Thursday 7 March: CLONE
- Wordle #991, Wednesday 6 March: TEARY
- Wordle #990, Tuesday 5 March: HUNCH
- Wordle #989, Monday 4 March: FLAME
- Wordle #988, Sunday 3 March: STATE
- Wordle #987, Saturday 2 March: URBAN
- Wordle #986, Friday 1 March: FORTY
- Wordle #985, Thursday 29 February: IMAGE
- Wordle #984, Wednesday 28 February: DEVIL
- Wordle #983, Tuesday 27 February: SENSE
- Wordle #982, Monday 26 February: OFTEN
- Wordle #981, Sunday 25 February: SMITH
- Wordle #980, Saturday 24 February: PIPER
- Wordle #979, Friday 23 February: APART
- Wordle #978, Thursday 22 February: HEAVY
- Wordle #977, Wednesday 21 February: BUILD
- Wordle #976, Tuesday 20 February: MATCH
- Wordle #975, Monday 19 February: PRICE
- Wordle #974, Sunday 18 February: RIDGE
- Wordle #973, Saturday 17 February: PSALM
- Wordle #972, Friday 16 February: STASH
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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