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 Sunday'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 #1696) - 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 #1696) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is C.
C is a very common starting letter in Wordle – in fact, it's the second most common of all, behind only S.
Wordle hints (game #1696) - 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 #1696) - 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 #1696) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1696.
- Today's Wordle answer is a musical instrument.
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 #1696)
- NYT average score: 4.0
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 5
- My skill score: 98
- My luck score: 41
- My start word performance: SANER (182 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (98)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Today's Wordle answer (game #1696) is… CELLO.
Wordle has a bit of a thing for musical instruments: CELLO is the 10th so far, or 11th if you include CHIME (game #839). The others that definitely do qualify are KAZOO (#730), VIOLA (#840), PIANO (#885), ORGAN (#1082), BUGLE (#1100), BONGO (#1425), BANJO (#1504), FLUTE (#1632) and SITAR (#1659). It's also a word that I know will delight at least one regular reader of this page because they are a cellist…
It may not make others so happy, though, because that double-L and O-at-the-end format may well have complicated the solving process. I'd imagine HELLO was an obvious red herring – and indeed, WordleBot reports that 6% of Wordlers played it on guess #3, 10% on #4 and 5% on guess #5. JELLO was another very common incorrect answer, particularly as the game went on (presumably after people first guessed HELLO).
The average here is 4.0, so it's not proving to be as tricky as yesterday's EMBED, but it's still above the mean score for the game. And as further evidence of its difficulty, the 'Bot only scored a five, continuing a run of poor form that's seen it lose to me four times, tie twice and only beat me once in the past week. Maybe it's got a virus…
It probably would have fared better if it was still beginning with CRANE, because that left only 25 options today; its current opener, SLATE, was at 98. Then again, my SANER left 182 and I still got home in three more guesses.
Much of the hard work was done by TILDE, which I've decided will be my second guess when I have a single yellow E after the first. TILDE has the advantage of including the always-common letters T, I and L, and though D doesn't quite fit that criteria it does regularly go before an E at the end.
Not today, though. Instead, the L turned green, while the E stayed yellow. I was now looking at either an E-L-- or -EL-- word, and I could find only four of them, all of the second format: CELLO, BELLY, BELCH and BELOW. The two I missed were HELLO and JELLY – although I didn't miss the first of those as such, because I was almost certain HELLO had been a past Wordle answer (and it had: game #783).
Playing BELCH might have left me a pesky 50/50, but it might also have been correct – so playing it felt like a risk worth taking, for once. It wasn't right, but nor did it leave me that 50/50. Instead, it gave me the yellow C that confirmed CELLO as the solution.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1695)
In a different time zone where it's still Sunday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1695, 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 E.
We don't get many Wordle answers that start with an E – though it's the most common letter in the game, it's only the 14th most likely to begin a solution.
- 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 D.
D is a fairly common letter to end a Wordle answer: it's the eighth most likely to be in that position in a solution.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1695.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is to make something an integral part of.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1695)
- NYT average score: 4.6
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- My skill score: 95
- My luck score: 50
- My start word performance: SANER (167 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (329)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1695) was… EMBED.
When is an ED word not an ED word? When it's EMBED, of course. Though most words that end with those letters are not included in the game, EMBED is one of the rare exceptions – along with the likes of UNFED (game #36), BLEED (#74), TWEED (#121), STEED (#125), FRIED (#966), BREED (#1024), GREED (#1359) and SPEED (#1651), all of which have been past Wordle answers.
The difference between those words and the type that are outlawed – such as TIRED or BORED or SATED – is that they are not past tense versions of regular verbs that also exist without the D on the end; you can say TIRE, BORE and SATE without that D ending, but you can't do that with BREED or STEED. FRIED is the only outlier in that list above, because it can be a past participle of FRY. However, it's also an adjective – as in FRIED food – so was allowed to feature.
EMBED has none of those complications, because even though it does end ED, it clearly doesn't also exist in a shortened form. However, keen players of the game may well have overlooked it precisely because it does have that format – and that could be one reason why the average today is a super-high 4.6.
The two Es won't have helped either, and nor will the presence of two middling letters in M and B. All told, there's a lot to be wary of here.
I managed a four, which I'm taking as a victory, although I'm disappointed to see that the 'Bot has rediscovered its mojo, scoring a three despite a very poor start that left more than 300 options.
SANER was not as bad as that, in that it left 167 possibles, but though my second guess DOILY was apparently a "wonderful" choice and gave me a yellow D, it still left 19 options.
I was never going to score a three now, then, and had work to do to make it a four. But the yellow D, together with the already-green E, suggested to me that it might be an ED word – and I came up with two of them: TWEED and CUBED. The former seemed a definite possibility, although obviously I now know that it had appeared before. The latter was a word that I thought might also count as an adjective, as in CUBED vegetables or similar.
TWEED was not right, but it cut the options from 19 to seven, and by giving me the second E it also ruled out CUBED. So what to play? Well, the other six words, according to WordleBot, were all examples of past-tense verbs: CEDED, HEXED, VEXED, EDGED, EGGED and EBBED. When I finally spotted EMBED, however, I was pretty sure that it had to be the solution – and was relieved when my hunch proved to be right.
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 #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
- 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
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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