Looking for a different day?
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 Friday’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.
Wordle hints (game #1442) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has vowels in two 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 #1442) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is H.
H is not a particularly common starting letter in Wordle: only 69 games begin with it, and it ranks in 15th place.
Wordle hints (game #1442) – 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 #1442) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Wordle hints (game #1442) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1442.
- Today’s Wordle answer is something you regularly do.
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 #1442)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 5
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- My skill score: 90
- My luck score: 34
- My start word performance: LEASE (284 remaining answers)
- WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (187)
- Tomorrow’s start word: AWOKE
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1442) is… HABIT.
I am very much a creature of HABIT, which is probably why I took so quickly to Wordle. After all, it’s a game that demands to be played daily, and which rewards those who do so. The streak mechanism is part of that, but also the way you get into a groove with it, recognizing patterns and forming strategies the more often you play.
Not that you will necessarily have needed to think too hard about today’s game. HABIT is not among the more difficult answers in recent weeks, nor among the easiest. It’s a standard game, the kind of which we’re all well used to; three consonants, two vowels, no real peril but not an absolute cinch either. It’s a classic Wordle, and it has that classic score of 3.8, right in the middle of the range.
It’s not one that I particularly enjoyed though, and I had to settle for a five. That was more due to bad luck than poor play, but I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory either.
Nor did I have a good start, with LEASE only giving me a yellow A and leaving 284 answers, a far cry from yesterday’s opener (see below). RAINY was a decent follow-up, though, placing the A in its most common position and turning it green in the process. I uncovered a yellow I, too, and ultimately cut my shortlist to nine.
I didn’t come up with anywhere near that many, finding only five: MAGIC, MAXIM, TACIT, PATIO and CACTI. As well as missing the eventual answer I also omitted VAPID (a likely answer, but a hard word to think of), BATIK (no idea what this is) and MAFIA (should have got this).
I played MAGIC next, because it would have guaranteed me a four if I hadn’t missed any words, but my thinking was obviously misguided and instead it left me a choice of four: PATIO, HABIT, VAPID and BATIK. Setting aside the latter two – at least one of which seems very unlikely to be an answer – I really should have spotted HABIT by this stage.
Sadly, I hadn’t – so I played PATIO first and when that was wrong had to think again. Eventually I realized HABIT was now the only answer and took my medicine in the form of a five.
How did you do today? Send me an email or let me know in the comments.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1441)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1441, 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 T.
I is only the 19th most common starting letter in Wordle, and just 34 of the original 2,309 answers begin with it.
- 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 M.
M is a middling ending letter: it ranks 13th in this regard, and only completes 42 Wordle answers overall.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1441.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a phrase whose meaning isn’t obvious from its individual words.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1441)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 4
- My skill score: 88
- My luck score: 62
- My start word performance: OPINE (11 remaining answers)
- WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (356)
- Tomorrow’s start word: LEASE
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1441) was… IDIOM.
IDIOM is a difficult word to define and seemingly a fairly hard word to solve in Wordle.
At the time of writing it had an average score of 4.0 – not super high, but higher than the norm. But there’s a caveat to that: ADIEU, the most popular start word of all (albeit not the best) left only two possible answers, and therefore at worst a score of three for any of its advocates.
That will undoubtedly have skewed the average, particularly given that AUDIO, the second most popular opener, left only nine too.
Other Wordlers will not have been so lucky: STARE left 321, SLATE left 314 and CRANE left 356. With two letter ‘I’s to find, anyone hampered by that kind of a first guess will have struggled to get home in four guesses.
Fortunately, my starter was a big success. I was given OPINE, a pretty decent start word for most games, and it left only 11 options. The green I in the middle was a bonus, because they can be hard to track down and place when yellow, plus there were now only three positions where the yellow O could go.
That left me three formats to explore: -OI–, –IO- and –I-O.
The first of those gave me the most choices: FOIST, HOIST, MOIST and JOIST, plus DOILY and VOILA, all of which I found. I also came up with IDIOM and IDIOT, but not ADIOS, AXIOM or AMIGO.
Based on those words I decided to go with HOIST, to see if that format was the one to worry about. Usually I’d play a narrowing-down word at this stage, but I thought I might have missed more options, and wanted to identify a potential letter-trap game as early as I could.
When the O stayed yellow it ruled out all but one of my words, IDIOM – though it did leave AXIOM and AMIGO. I played what I thought was the only choice in blissful ignorance and came away with a lovely three.
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 #1441, Friday 30 May: IDIOM
- Wordle #1440, Thursday 29 May: QUASH
- Wordle #1439, Wednesday 28 May: POLAR
- Wordle #1438, Tuesday 27 May: SPORT
- Wordle #1437, Monday 26 May: DRONE
- Wordle #1436, Sunday 25 May: GRIFT
- Wordle #1435, Saturday 24 May: SUEDE
- Wordle #1434, Friday 23 May: SHUCK
- Wordle #1433, Thursday 22 May: FOLIO
- Wordle #1432, Wednesday 21 May: ALARM
- Wordle #1431, Tuesday 20 May: BORNE
- Wordle #1430, Monday 19 May: PITCH
- Wordle #1429, Sunday 18 May: LIVID
- Wordle #1428, Saturday 17 May: GROWN
- Wordle #1427, Friday 16 May: FIFTH
- Wordle #1426, Thursday 15 May: EAGER
- Wordle #1425, Wednesday 14 May: BONGO
- Wordle #1424, Tuesday 13 May: AWARE
- Wordle #1423, Monday 12 May: BICEP
- Wordle #1422, Sunday 11 May: DOWEL
- Wordle #1421, Saturday 10 May: YEAST
- Wordle #1420, Friday 9 May: TRIPE
- Wordle #1419, Thursday 8 May: BALMY
- Wordle #1418, Wednesday 7 May: MACHO
- Wordle #1417, Tuesday 6 May: SUITE
- Wordle #1416, Monday 5 May: SHUSH
- Wordle #1415, Sunday 4 May: TROUT
- Wordle #1414, Saturday 3 May: PATSY
- Wordle #1413, Friday 2 May: WHOSE
- Wordle #1412, Thursday 1 May: ADEPT
- Wordle #1411, Wednesday 30 April: IDLER
- Wordle #1410, Tuesday 29 April: BLISS
- Wordle #1409, Monday 28 April: DUMMY
- Wordle #1408, Sunday 27 April: WEEDY
- Wordle #1407, Saturday 26 April: CLASH
- Wordle #1406, Friday 25 April: KNOWN
- Wordle #1405, Thursday 24 April: GENIE
- 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
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 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.
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.
12. The NYT has added in some of its own words, that weren’t in that list of 2,309 solutions. More will undoubtedly come over the next few years.
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