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 Monday'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 #1669) - 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 #1669) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is G.
G is the eighth most common starting letter, featuring in 115 Wordle answers. It's often paired with an R to make GR--- or an L to make GL---, but I'm not revealing whether that's the case today.
Wordle hints (game #1669) - 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 #1669) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is O.
O is a middling ending letter. It ranks 12th in this regard, and finishes 58 Wordle answers in total.
Wordle hints (game #1669) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1669.
- Today's Wordle answer is a type of soup or stew.
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 #1669)
- NYT average score: 4.4
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 5
- My skill score: 99
- My luck score: 37
- My start word performance: SANER (304 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (315)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Today's Wordle answer (game #1669) is… GUMBO.
I'll be honest, I didn't exactly know what GUMBO was before looking it up for this column. I knew it was a food, and I knew it was a soup or stew – but to be specific, it's a stew from Louisiana that usually contains onions, celery, bell peppers, plus meat or shellfish, and often okra. So there you have it.
What I did know about GUMBO right after playing it was that it would probably make for a difficult Wordle answer, and its average score of 4.4 confirms that hunch. That's probably due to a combination of the relative uncommonness of the word outside of Louisiana or at least outside of the United States – and the letters included.
In terms of the latter point, G, M and B are all middling letters in general: 17th, 16th and 18th respectively. Plus, U is the least common of the vowels, and far less likely to appear than an E or A in particular.
I scored a four thanks largely to a very lucky second guess. It wasn't an inspired choice as such, because it was CLOUT – which is what I always play after drawing a blank on the first word – but that gave me the O and U in yellow form, and cut the shortlist to five.
I only thought of three of these – DOUGH, BOUGH and JUMBO – so playing BOUGH next was an easy enough choice. When the first four letters turned yellow I was initially flummoxed, but after a few minutes puzzling over it I spotted GUMBO and played it for a WordleBot-beating four.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1668)
In a different time zone where it's still Monday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1668, 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 T.
T is one of the most common starting letters in the game, beginning 149 of Wordle's 2,309 answers. That gives it a ranking of fourth in the alphabet, behind only S, C and B.
- 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 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.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1668.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is a test – or a judgement.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1668)
- NYT average score: 3.3
- My score: 3
- WordleBot's score: 3
- My skill score: 97
- My luck score: 68
- My start word performance: SANER (83 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (18)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1668) was… TRIAL.
I'm not sure whether to feel happy or sad. I scored a three, sure, and my second guess cut the options down from 83 to one in one go – but on the other hand I was so close to it being from 83 to zero…
In general I'm more of a glass-half-full than half-empty person, so I'll go with happy. After all, a three is never a bad score and this gave me my fourth in five days following BLAST, EIGHT and MANIC, with an interlude only for the more difficult QUARK.
That got me thinking about my ambition this year to score more threes than fours. I decided to take a look at all of my scores since 2022 (I only have patchy records for 2021) to see how I've done historically, and was surprised to see quite how far off I was last year.
As you can see below, 2025 was by far my worst year for threes vs fours, with 119 vs 180. Wow! That's really poor.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | 1s | 2s | 3s | 4s | 5s | 6s | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | 0 | 20 | 142 | 141 | 48 | 14 | 3.71 |
2023 | 0 | 18 | 196 | 113 | 31 | 7 | 3.49 |
2024 | 0 | 14 | 140 | 152 | 49 | 11 | 3.73 |
2025 | 0 | 14 | 119 | 180 | 47 | 5 | 3.75 |
2026 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 3.67 |
Total | 0 | 66 | 602 | 592 | 176 | 37 | 3.67 |
Interestingly (to me at least), my overall average last year was only a tiny bit worse than that for two other years, 2022 and 2024, on account of there being fewer sixes than usual.
2023, meanwhile, was an outlier for my average because at that stage I was a) using a very good start word all of the time (STARE) and b) fully familiar with the game; in 2022 I was still learning, in 2024 and 2025 I was mostly using random start words.
What's happening in 2026 so far, then? Well, I'm one behind on threes after this game, and with plenty of time to catch up. Fingers crossed.
Back to TRIAL, then. This was most likely an easy game for the majority of people, as its average of 3.3 indicates. All five letters are very common, and all feature in many of the most popular start words.
The main complication is probably the existence of TRAIL as an alternative. I came so close to playing TRIAL as my second guess, but ultimately decided to put the A where it's more common and had to settle for a three rather than a two. Still, at least it wasn't a four, eh?
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 #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
- Wordle #1651, Friday 26 December: SPEED
- Wordle #1650, Thursday 25 December: PRISM
- Wordle #1649, Wednesday 24 December: SPOOL
- Wordle #1648, Tuesday 23 December: GLINT
- Wordle #1647, Monday 22 December: CONCH
- Wordle #1646, Sunday 21 December: QUILT
- Wordle #1645, Saturday 20 December: WHITE
- Wordle #1644, Friday 19 December: MYRRH
- Wordle #1643, Thursday 18 December: RUGBY
- Wordle #1642, Wednesday 17 December: GRASS
- Wordle #1641, Tuesday 16 December: SEGUE
- Wordle #1640, Monday 15 December: DODGY
- Wordle #1639, Sunday 14 December: SWING
- Wordle #1638, Saturday 13 December: MISER
- Wordle #1637, Friday 12 December: TRUCK
- Wordle #1636, Thursday 11 December: GUESS
- Wordle #1635, Wednesday 10 December: ERASE
- Wordle #1634, Tuesday 9 December: SNIDE
- Wordle #1633, Monday 8 December: GRAVY
- Wordle #1632, Sunday 7 December: FLUTE
- Wordle #1631, Saturday 6 December: WAIST
- Wordle #1630, Friday 5 December: WAIST
- Wordle #1629, Thursday 4 December: TULIP
- Wordle #1628, Wednesday 3 December: HASTE
- Wordle #1627, Tuesday 2 December: CACTI
- Wordle #1626, Monday 1 December: LEACH
- Wordle #1625, Sunday 30 November: MUGGY
- Wordle #1624, Saturday 29 November: GRUFF
- Wordle #1623, Friday 28 November: COLIC
- Wordle #1622, Thursday 27 November: REMIT
- Wordle #1621, Wednesday 26 November: HOVEL
- Wordle #1620, Tuesday 25 November: PLEAD
- Wordle #1619, Monday 24 November: DOUGH
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.
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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