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'. 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 #1396) - clue #1 - Vowels
How many vowels does today's Wordle have?
Wordle today has*.
* 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 #1396) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
The first letter in today's Wordle answer is .
A is a reasonably common starting letter in Wordle: 140 games begin with this letter. It ranks 6th among starting letters, behind S, C, B, T and P.
Wordle hints (game #1396) - clue #3 - repeated letters
Does today's Wordle have any repeated letters?
There are 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 #1396) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
The last letter in today's Wordle is .
N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it's the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.
Wordle hints (game #1396) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1396.
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 #1396)
Today's Wordle answer (game #1396) is… .
We're in the midst of a particularly easy run of Wordles. The past five have all been below 4.0 – in fact all at 3.8 or lower – and only one of the past eight have been above the game's overall average of 3.96.
ASHEN fits neatly into that run, with a rating of 3.7. It's not incredibly, historically low like yesterday's CREST was, but there's nothing to be scared of here either.
The most notable thing about is probably the fact that it has an SH combination in positions #2 and #3.
SH is of course the second most common starting combo in the game (after ST) and also appears often in the final two letters, but ASHEN is one of only two Wordle words which features it in this position (with the other being USHER, which was an answer back in December 2021).
My game once again began poorly, with my opening guess BRAWL leaving 312 solutions. But unlike with the previous few games, I had a bit of luck on the second and third attempts.
SAINT was chosen based purely on how common its letters are, and gave me yellow S and N to go with my still yellow A. This cut the options to a quartet of ASHEN, ASPEN, UNSAY and MENSA, but honestly I didn't consider any of the others.
Should I have done? Well, I can't imagine MENSA is an answer, whatever WordleBot says; it has several meanings (outside of the proper noun for the smart people organization), but all are obscure. UNSAY is technically a word – but really? ASPEN is possible – it's a type of tree – but still seems unlikely.
Anyway, all of that is irrelevant because ASHEN was the only one of the four I thought of. I played that next in blissful ignorance and scored a welcome three.
How did you do today? Send me an email or let me know in the comments.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1395)
In a different time zone where it's still Monday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1395, too.
* 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).
C is a very common starting letter in Wordle – in fact, it's the second most common of all, behind only S.
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.
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 #1395.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1395)
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1395) was… .
Let's be honest, when Wordle is easy it can be a little formulaic. I'd be quite happy if the NYT announced that it was removing the few hundred easiest answers, to make it all a little more challenging.
OK, so we don't technically know whether a Wordle is easy or not ahead of time, but we can easily predict it. For starters: is it made up of five very common letters? And secondly, do many of the best Wordle start words fare particularly well with it?
Both were true of yesterday's CREST, and it duly had an average score of 3.1. This makes it the equal third easiest of 2025 so far, level with TRACK and CHORE and behind REACH (3.0) and CHASE (2.9).
All five letters are common, obviously; they rank 10th, 3rd, 1st, 8th and 5th respectively. Three of them – C, R and T – also appear in their most common positions.
As far as start words go, meanwhile, CRANE left 10, LEAST, PARSE, TRADE and SLICE six, STARE left five, TASER four, CARTE left three, TRACE, CRATE, CARET and TRICE only two.
And that's just among the top 20 – go outside it and you also have the popular IRATE, RAISE and ARISE at 10, eight and seven respectively.
I did not have such good luck with my first word, and had to settle for yet another four – my ninth in the past 12 games, annoyingly enough.
My opener was TOKEN, which gave me a yellow T and E, but left 147 options, about 130 more than many people will have had.
Still, LEAST was much better, cutting those hundred-plus options to a mere six.
I'd chosen it based on T being very likely to be at the end of the word, given that it definitely wasn't at the start, and therefore S might well go before it. And my hunch was correct, giving me two greens, although the E stayed yellow.
The six words were easy enough to find at this stage: QUEST, GUEST, CHEST, EXIST, CREST and WREST. I needed a word to narrow them down, and CIGAR was perfect; it would guarantee me the answer, whatever happened. Well, unless I'd missed any possibles (but I hadn't).
When the C turned green it immediately ruled out four and left only CHEST and CREST, and with the R turning yellow at the end it confirmed the latter as the answer.
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.
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 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.
Letters that are in the answer and in the right place turn green.
Letters that are in the answer but in the wrong place turn yellow.
Letters that are not in the answer turn gray.
Answers are never plural.
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.
Each guess must be a valid word in Wordle's dictionary. You can't guess ABCDE, for instance.
You do not have to include correct letters in subsequent guesses unless you play on Hard mode.
You have six guesses to solve the Wordle.
You must complete the daily Wordle before midnight in your timezone.
All answers are drawn from Wordle's list of 2,309 solutions. However…
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.