NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1796, Wednesday, May 20
Find out what today's Wordle answer is plus get some hints to help you solve it
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 Tuesday'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.
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 four 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 #1796) - 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 #1796) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1796) - 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.
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Wordle hints (game #1796) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is K.
K is much more common at the end of a Wordle answer than at the start, and in fact ranks ninth overall in this regard.
Wordle hints (game #1796) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1796.
- Today's Wordle answer is to damage, ruin or cast ashore.
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 #1796)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 4
- My skill score: 97
- My luck score: 45
- My start word performance: SANER (125 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (329)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Today's Wordle answer (game #1796) is… WRECK.
I often forget that W can go before an R at the start of a word, and that mistake nearly came back to haunt me today.
Faced with a choice between CREME, CREPE or WRECK I only thought of the first two, and guessed CREME incorrectly thinking I had a 50/50. My fingers were poised to type CREPE on the fourth guess, so sure was I that it must be the solution… and then fortunately my brain kicked into gear and I realized that the C at the start of the word was yellow, not green — and therefore it couldn't be CREPE after all.
With that disaster averted, I spent a little longer looking at the board I spotted that WRECK fit, then duly closed off the game with a four. Phew!
For those of you who played with a little more care, WRECK will have been a fairly simple Wordle to solve. It has an average score of 3.6, and though W and K are individually uncommon letters, they're far more likely to appear at the start and end of the board than elsewhere.
So, that's now three games in a row below 4.0; maybe we're about to have a very easy run to rival the very difficult one that ended on Sunday…
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1796)
In a different time zone where it's still Tuesday? Don't worry — I can give you some clues for Wordle #1795, 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 D.
D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.
- 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 Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1795.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is covered in a fine grain.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1795)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- My skill score: 93
- My luck score: 55
- My start word performance: SANER (72 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (8)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1795) is… DUSTY.
This might be the first truly dull Wordle in a couple of weeks. It's not very hard, it's not very easy, it doesn't contain any repeated letters, it doesn't contain any uncommon letters, it's not a repeated answer, it's not a non-original answer… it's just a standard Wordle.
There's nothing wrong with that, though, and you'll still have needed to have your wits about you in order to get a good score. I didn't manage that, having to settle for a four against the average of 3.8 — and that was largely down to DUSTY's one main complication.
Specifically, that's the existence of several similarly spelled words, namely MUSTY, BUSTY, GUSTY, FUSTY and LUSTY. The latter was not a word I needed to worry about, having ruled out the L on my second guess, but the others were on my shortlist, together with MISTY.
My solution was the play MIDGE, which did the narrowing-down job for me and left DUSTY as the only solution. All told, an unremarkable, unmemorable Wordle then…
Wordle answers: The past 50
I've been playing Wordle every day for more than four 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 #1795, Tuesday 19 May: DUSTY
- Wordle #1794, Monday 18 May: LOATH
- Wordle #1793, Sunday 17 May: BYLAW
- Wordle #1792, Saturday 16 May: MOVER
- Wordle #1791, Friday 15 May: CREED
- Wordle #1790, Thursday 14 May: WAVER
- Wordle #1789, Wednesday 13 May: DOWDY
- Wordle #1788, Tuesday 12 May: CLOCK
- Wordle #1787, Monday 11 May: NEWLY
- Wordle #1786, Sunday 10 May: PARKA
- Wordle #1785, Saturday 9 May: SATIN
- Wordle #1784, Friday 8 May: UMBRA
- Wordle #1783, Thursday 7 May: BUDGE
- Wordle #1782, Wednesday 6 May: LIKEN
- Wordle #1781, Tuesday 5 May: LATCH
- Wordle #1780, Monday 4 May: RISER
- Wordle #1779, Sunday 3 May: PUFFY
- Wordle #1778, Saturday 2 May: BRING
- Wordle #1777, Friday 1 May: PLUME
- Wordle #1776, Thursday 30 April: CROCK
- Wordle #1775, Wednesday 29 April: RURAL
- Wordle #1774, Tuesday 28 April: QUACK
- Wordle #1773, Monday 27 April: EERIE
- Wordle #1772, Sunday 26 April: GLOSS
- Wordle #1771, Saturday 25 April: WOMEN
- Wordle #1770, Friday 24 April: DRUNK
- Wordle #1769, Thursday 23 April: TWEET
- Wordle #1768, Wednesday 22 April: SNORE
- Wordle #1767, Tuesday 21 April: CLUMP
- Wordle #1766, Monday 20 April: WEAVE
- Wordle #1765, Sunday 19 April: STAND
- Wordle #1764, Saturday 18 April: TOADY
- Wordle #1763, Friday 17 April: BELLE
- Wordle #1762, Thursday 16 April: CUBIT
- Wordle #1761, Wednesday 15 April: BEGUN
- Wordle #1760, Tuesday 14 April: CYCLE
- Wordle #1759, Monday 13 April: ELFIN
- Wordle #1758, Sunday 12 April: ALLEY
- Wordle #1757, Saturday 11 April: PRUDE
- Wordle #1756, Friday 10 April: CAROM
- Wordle #1755, Thursday 9 April: LADEN
- Wordle #1754, Wednesday 8 April: INLET
- Wordle #1753, Tuesday 7 April: DENSE
- Wordle #1752, Monday 6 April: SWORN
- Wordle #1751, Sunday 5 April: ENVOY
- Wordle #1750, Saturday 4 April: SANDY
- Wordle #1749, Friday 3 April: SINGE
- Wordle #1748, Thursday 2 April: SOBER
- Wordle #1747, Wednesday 1 April: FIZZY
- Wordle #1746, Tuesday 31 March: SWAMP
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 2026.
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.
10c. Plus, the NYT has now started repeating answers that have already appeared in Wordle. We have no idea how often it will do this, so you'll need to be on your guard.
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.

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief, the latest in a long line of senior editorial roles he’s held in a career that started the week that Google launched (nice of them to mark the occasion). Prior to joining TR, he was UK Editor in Chief on Tom’s Guide, where he oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage. He's also a former editor of the tech website Stuff and spent five years at the music magazine NME, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people’s fun. He’s based in London, and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and pretty much every other type of gadget you can think of. An avid photographer, Marc likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). He also enjoys live music, gaming, cycling, and beating Wordle (he authors the daily Wordle today page).
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