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 Friday'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 three 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 #1617) - 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 #1617) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1617) - 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 #1617) - 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 #1617) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1617.
- Today's Wordle answer is to have relatively great extent from side to side.
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 #1617)
- NYT average score: 3.5
- My score: 3
- WordleBot's score: 4
- My skill score: 92
- My luck score: 85
- My start word performance: SILKY (19 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (102)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Today's Wordle answer (game #1617) is… THICK.
Knowing your Wordle combinations can be a great help in this game. Specifically, the first two or last two can really shape the answer, and there are some pairings that are so common you can be sure they'll crop up often.
THICK has common combos at both ends of the word, which is probably one of the reasons why it has a very low average of 3.5; a nice respite following the run of 4.6, 4.6, 4.4 that we've had in the previous three games.
TH is perhaps not quite as common as you might expect, in that it only ranks 25th in this regard. But then again, it still occurs 24 times, so it definitely still qualifies for the top table of starting combos. CK, meanwhile, is undoubtedly one of the likeliest endings – there are 47 of them, and it ranks sixth behind only ER, CH, LY, SE and AL.
Put them together and you get TH-CK – which only has one possible solution, THICK. However, there is a possible complication in that there are three other options if you change a different letter. TRICK is one – and indeed, it's the one I played before solving this game on the third guess – and there's also CHICK and THINK. Change a couple of letters and you might have had TRUCK or THING or STICK or many others.
But really I'm searching for potential issues here, because it's not a difficult one. Or not for me at least, because my opening guess was SILKY, which left only 19 choices, and my second was TRICK.
That gave me a guaranteed solve on the third guess, which was nice following a four and two fives.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1616)
In a different time zone where it's still Friday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1616, 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 V.
V is a fairly uncommon starting letter in Wordle. There are only 43 answers that begin with a V, and it ranks just 16th.
- 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 #1616.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is something used in most – but not all – Wordles.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1616)
- NYT average score: 4.4
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- My skill score: 91
- My luck score: 42
- My start word performance: SWIFT (114 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (98)
- Tomorrow's start word: SILKY
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1616) was… VOWEL.
This has been a brutally tough trio of Wordles, with a pair of 4.6s (MAKER and GRAVE) followed by VOWEL, which has an average of 4.4 at the time of writing.
It doesn't look as tricky as those words to me – not least because I scored a four, whereas I had to endure fives on the previous two days – but it does have a couple of obvious complications.
These are, obviously, the letters W and V. They're the fifth and sixth least common letters in the game respectively, and between them only appear just under 350 times.
In contrast, the consonants P, H, D, C, N, S, L, T and R all appear more often on their own, as do all five vowels, and the hybrid sometimes-vowel-sometimes-consonant Y. Some of them appear a lot more regularly – R, for instance, features nearly 900 times alone.
W and V are uncommon letters, then, and to have both in one word immediately makes the game more difficult.
Beyond that, there's the fact that the other letters, and the word's format, are very common. -O-EL has nine solutions itself, including the likes of HOTEL and MODEL, plus several that contain a V or W: TOWEL, HOVEL, NOVEL, DOWEL and BOWEL.
So that's a nasty combination of uncommon letters with a common format, and that will have led lots of people to do what I did today – namely guess one of those similarly spelled alternatives first.
Indeed, as late on as the fourth guess BOWEL was played by 8%, HOVEL by 5%, NOVEL and TOWEL by 3%; plenty will have scored a five or six.
I managed a four, which I'm happy enough with. I had a lucky break on the first guess, though, when SWIFT gave me the W right away. I went with WRONG next, and while that was, um, wrong, it cut my 114-strong shortlist to 15.
I was fairly sure that the W would go in the middle now, with BOWEL, DOWEL, VOWEL, LOWLY, JOWLY and DOWDY all on my list. I went with DOWEL to identify that -OWEL pattern as early as I could, and was close – but no cigar. That left me with a 50/50 and this time I got it 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 #1616, Friday 21 November: VOWEL
- Wordle #1615, Thursday 20 November: GRAVE
- Wordle #1614, Wednesday 19 November: MAKER
- Wordle #1613, Tuesday 18 November: OPINE
- Wordle #1612, Monday 17 November: CLAMP
- Wordle #1611, Sunday 16 November: WIELD
- Wordle #1610, Saturday 15 November: CLUNG
- Wordle #1609, Friday 14 November: LURID
- Wordle #1608, Thursday 13 November: TINGE
- Wordle #1607, Wednesday 12 November: DEUCE
- Wordle #1606, Tuesday 11 November: GIZMO
- Wordle #1605, Monday 10 November: TABBY
- Wordle #1604, Sunday 9 November: FUGUE
- Wordle #1603, Saturday 8 November: ARISE
- Wordle #1602, Friday 7 November: PERIL
- Wordle #1601, Thursday 6 November: GUISE
- Wordle #1600, Wednesday 5 November: SHORT
- Wordle #1599, Tuesday 4 November: VENUE
- Wordle #1598, Monday 3 November: AWOKE
- Wordle #1597, Sunday 2 November: RABID
- Wordle #1596, Saturday 1 November: MOTEL
- Wordle #1595, Friday 31 October: ABHOR
- Wordle #1594, Thursday 30 October: LATHE
- Wordle #1593, Wednesday 29 October: GLARE
- Wordle #1592, Tuesday 28 October: HOLLY
- Wordle #1591, Monday 27 October: FETID
- Wordle #1590, Sunday 26 October: PLUMP
- Wordle #1589, Saturday 25 October: GAUGE
- Wordle #1588, Friday 24 October: TUBER
- Wordle #1587, Thursday 23 October: DRILL
- Wordle #1586, Wednesday 22 October: STUNT
- Wordle #1585, Tuesday 21 October: DETOX
- Wordle #1584, Monday 20 October: LIMBO
- Wordle #1583, Sunday 19 October: IDEAL
- Wordle #1582, Saturday 18 October: HAVEN
- Wordle #1581, Friday 17 October: GROSS
- Wordle #1580, Thursday 16 October: CATTY
- Wordle #1579, Wednesday 15 October: SPOOF
- Wordle #1578, Tuesday 14 October: FORUM
- Wordle #1577, Monday 13 October: BEARD
- Wordle #1576, Sunday 12 October: WOUND
- Wordle #1575, Saturday 11 October: STACK
- Wordle #1574, Friday 10 October: LEVER
- Wordle #1573, Thursday 9 October: HARDY
- Wordle #1572, Wednesday 8 October: ANNOY
- Wordle #1571, Tuesday 7 October: NYLON
- Wordle #1570, Monday 6 October: AMUSE
- Wordle #1569, Sunday 5 October: PLANE
- Wordle #1568, Saturday 4 October: RELAY
- Wordle #1567, Friday 3 October: SPASM
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 2025.
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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