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 Saturday'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 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 #1702) - 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 #1702) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1702) - 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 #1702) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is L.
L is a really common letter to find at the end of a Wordle. There are 155 games that finish with an L, and it ranks as the fifth most likely letter there.
Wordle hints (game #1702) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1702.
- Today's Wordle answer is a part of a skeleton.
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 #1702)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- My skill score: 98
- My luck score: 34
- My start word performance: SANER (87 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (19)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Today's Wordle answer (game #1702) is… SKULL.
This is the third game in a row containing a repeated letter, a scenario that seems like it should be unlikely but actually isn't. Even just this year we've had two such sequences – EMBED/CELLO/SCENE and POSSE/FILLY/OOMPH – and in total it's happened 34 times.
On a few occasions those runs have extended to four repeats in a row, and once we even had five; that was back in September 2022, when we had WHOOP, TAUNT, LEERY, CLASS and THEME on successive days. Will we get another repeat tomorrow? We'll have to wait to find out, but as a fan of novel events, I have my fingers crossed that it'll be repeats all the way until the end of the month now…
The double-L may have complicated matters a little today, but I wonder if the existence of the words SKILL and SCULL, plus the likes of SILKY, SULKY and SKULK were bigger problems.
The average of 3.8 is not particularly high, but that will to an extent have been skewed by the fact that SLATE will have given its many acolytes an easier time of it; it uncovered a green S and yellow L and cut the shortlist to 19 right away.
I had the green S at the start myself, thanks to SANER, and found the yellow L on the second guess with CLOTH. This had been chosen due to the likelihood that C, L, T or H might follow the S, but I needed another attempt to work out which letter really did serve that purpose.
That was K of course, revealed after I played SKILL. I'd picked that because it was the closest I could come to finding a word that would narrow down the remaining nine solutions. It wasn't actually guaranteed to eliminate them all – it might have left a 50/50 between SPILL and SWILL – but WordleBot couldn't do any better, given that its choice of SPILL might also have left a choice of two.
SKILL wasn't correct, but fortunately it didn't leave that 50/50 either. Instead, it gave me four greens and took me to within one letter of the solution. I'm not loving this run of fours, but I don't think I could have done much more today, so I'll take it.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1701)
In a different time zone where it's still Saturday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1701, too.
- Wordle yesterday had 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).
- The first letter in yesterday's Wordle answer was B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it's the third most common overall, behind only S and C.
- 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 #1701.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is what flowers do periodically.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1701)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- My skill score: 90
- My luck score: 38
- My start word performance: SANER (304 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (50)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1701) was… BLOOM.
Double-O words are pretty common in Wordle: BLOOM is the 41st so far, and there are at least another 19 still to come. However, it's not so common that you'd generally expect to get two in a row – so you could consider today's game to be unlucky.
The only other time it's happened was for GLOOM and FLOOD, games #352 and #353 back in June 2022. On that occasion, the average scores were 4.3 and 4.1 respectively, and as if to prove just how difficult these words can be, BLOOM has an average of 4.1 to following the 4.2 for yesterday's MOOCH.
I've written before about how OO is my least favorite format in Wordle, so the fact that I scored a third four in a row here is not a terrible result for me. I didn't beat the 'Bot this time, but I'm still 8-4 up versus my digital adversary over the past 12 days, so I can handle that.
I didn't get off to the best start here, with SANER drawing a blank and leaving 300-plus solutions for the second consecutive day. However, CLOUT was a very helpful second guess, giving me the L and one of the Os.
With A, E and U ruled out, I knew that an OO word was a possibility at this point. There were a couple of other options though, including FLOWY and GLOWY – or at least so WordleBot said later. Are either of those really valid options though? I'd be surprised.
Far more likely were the likes of BLOOD, FLOOD, BLOOP, GLOOP, GLOOM and BLOOM – all of which I did think of.
The only thing for it now was to roll out my secret weapon: BEFOG. This is a word I've probably never used in real life, but in Wordle it's often got me out of a sticky situation. The 'Bot said that BUMPY would have been a better option, but I think its logic was skewed by those -OWY words, so I reckon mine was better.
That said, it was a bit unlucky: BEFOG gave me a green B but still left three words, BLOOM, BLOOD and BLOOP.
I thought that BLOOD had been an answer before, and also suspected that BLOOP might not be a genuine solution. So I went with BLOOM instead and guessed correctly for an average-beating four. That'll do today.
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 #1701, Saturday 14 February: BLOOM
- Wordle #1700, Friday 13 February: MOOCH
- Wordle #1699, Thursday 12 February: SURGE
- Wordle #1698, Wednesday 11 February: VEGAN
- Wordle #1697, Tuesday 10 February: SCENE
- Wordle #1696, Monday 9 February: CELLO
- Wordle #1695, Sunday 8 February: EMBED
- Wordle #1694, Saturday 7 February: BLEAT
- Wordle #1693, Friday 6 February: GAVEL
- Wordle #1692, Thursday 5 February: SWOOP
- Wordle #1691, Wednesday 4 February: CHIDE
- Wordle #1690, Tuesday 3 February: WEIGH
- Wordle #1689, Monday 2 February: CIGAR
- Wordle #1688, Sunday 1 February: SPINY
- Wordle #1687, Saturday 31 January: ALLOT
- Wordle #1686, Friday 30 January: JUMBO
- Wordle #1685, Thursday 29 January: FLAKY
- Wordle #1684, Wednesday 28 January: CRUEL
- Wordle #1683, Tuesday 27 January: DUSKY
- Wordle #1682, Monday 26 January: FREAK
- Wordle #1681, Sunday 25 January: STRUT
- Wordle #1680, Saturday 24 January: CLIFF
- Wordle #1679, Friday 23 January: BARON
- Wordle #1678, Thursday 22 January: CLINK
- Wordle #1677, Wednesday 21 January: CUBIC
- Wordle #1676, Tuesday 20 January: SULLY
- Wordle #1675, Monday 19 January: WAXEN
- Wordle #1674, Sunday 18 January: SUMAC
- Wordle #1673, Saturday 17 January: FIERY
- Wordle #1672, Friday 16 January: RACER
- Wordle #1671, Thursday 15 January: CHASM
- Wordle #1670, Wednesday 14 January: AVOID
- Wordle #1669, Tuesday 13 January: GUMBO
- Wordle #1668, Monday 12 January: TRIAL
- Wordle #1667, Sunday 11 January: QUARK
- Wordle #1666, Saturday 10 January: MANIC
- Wordle #1665, Friday 9 January: EIGHT
- Wordle #1664, Thursday 8 January: BLAST
- Wordle #1663, Wednesday 7 January: PECAN
- Wordle #1662, Tuesday 6 January: OOMPH
- Wordle #1661, Monday 5 January: FILLY
- Wordle #1660, Sunday 4 January: POSSE
- Wordle #1659, Saturday 3 January: SITAR
- Wordle #1658, Friday 2 January: PROOF
- Wordle #1657, Thursday 1 January: FABLE
- Wordle #1656, Wednesday 31 December: SIREN
- Wordle #1655, Tuesday 30 December: DECOR
- Wordle #1654, Monday 29 December: FRUIT
- Wordle #1653, Sunday 28 December: ABBOT
- Wordle #1652, Saturday 27 December: BATCH
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.
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