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? My Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at my new NYT Strands today page for my verdict on the New York Times' latest brainteaser.
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 two 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. He's also played every Wordle ever and only lost once and yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Wordle hints (game #1,043) - 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 #1,043) - 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 L to make GL---, but I'm not revealing whether that's the case today.
Wordle hints (game #1,043) - 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 #1,043) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is M.
M is a middling ending letter: it ranks 13th in this regard, and only completes 42 Wordle answers overall.
Wordle hints (game #1,043) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1,043.
- Today's Wordle answer is to shine.
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 #1,043)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 3
- WordleBot's score: 4
- Best start word performance*: PLATE (8 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: MAKER (18)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Today's Wordle answer (game #1,043) is… GLEAM.
If you'd lined up the past four Wordles and asked me to guess which would be hardest, I'd never have predicted it would be GLEAM over VAPID, INTRO and OVERT. But that's the situation that's played out here, with today's game having an average score of 4.1, compared to 3.9, 3.9 and 3.8 for the previous three.
GLEAM is a more common word than VAPID or OVERT, and lacks the single uncommon letter, V, that's found in both. Against INTRO it's much of a muchness, meanwhile, so if pushed I'd have predicted those two to have a score of around 3.7 or 3.8, while the other two pushed past the 4.0 level.
Well, that's not the case – which possibly says more about my grasp of human psychology as anything else, because the average score is ultimately a measure of how easy the game's players are finding it, rather than how intrinsically easy it is.
Of course much of this may be down to how successful the most popular start words were, and how many similarly spelled words there are. On the former, only a few of the best choices worked well: SLATE left nine possible solutions. That was matched by PLACE and PLANE, and beaten by PLATE, which left eight – but none of those three are played by all that many Wordlers. The really popular choices, such as STARE (110) and ADIEU (222), were way off.
The other factor, format, may have had more of an impact still. The -LEA- combination in the middle of the word is a common one that's found in nine of Wordle's 2,309 original answers. That may not sound like a lot, but it's equal third highest in that regard, behind -AST-, -LAN-, -OUN-, -REA-, -OWE- and -OVE, all of which have 11 solutions, and -REE- on 10.
That definitely affected some games today. CLEAN, BLEAK, PLEAD, GLEAN, CLEAR, PLEAT, BLEAT and CLEAT were all played in relatively large numbers on guesses two and three, as players seemingly attempted to identify the starting and ending letters. And you can see why in some cases they were chosen ahead of GLEAM. As I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, C, B and P are all more common starting letters than G, while N, K, D, T and R are all more common at the end than M. In the probability stakes, playing any of them made more sense than going with GLEAM.
All of which means that I've argued myself into a corner. Forget what I said at the start – there is indeed a good reason why today's game has a high average score of 4.1. And as if to prove the point, even WordleBot could only manage a 4/6.
I guess my response was skewed by own game, because I scored a 3/6 thanks to a very fortunate first guess and a sensible second attempt.
My random word today was MAKER, which wouldn't usually be a particularly good one but which today left only 18 possible solutions. Better still, it gave me the yellow M that would be the key to me solving this Wordle in three.
I didn't find all 18 possible solutions left for me, but I came up with enough to know that adding an L into the mix was important: it featured in BLAME, FLAME, AMPLE, AMBLE and indeed GLEAM. I also came up with SHAME and STEAM, plus ENEMA, IMAGE and AMAZE, but decided to go down the L route and played BLAME.
WordleBot loved this, stating that it was exactly what it would have picked too. It was slightly fortunate in reducing the answer pool to just a single option, but you've got to ride your luck sometimes. With the L confirmed in the second spot and the other letters still yellow, GLEAM was now the only solution, so I played it next for my WordleBot-beating 3/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1,042)
In a different time zone where it's still Friday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1042, 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 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 #1,042.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is flat or dull.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1,042)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 4
- Best start word performance*: PARSE (11 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: BLARE (193)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1,042) was… VAPID.
Once again I'm a little surprised about the average score for a game not being higher. People are apparently solving VAPID in 3.9 guesses, which is identical to the score for yesterday's INTRO (see below). But to my mind VAPID is a lot harder.
For starters, it begins with a V; as I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, V is only the 16th most likely letter to begin a solution, so not common at all. Plus, the other two consonants, P and D, are both rather middling letters. There's no R here, no T, no S, no L, no C… and on the vowels front, no E.
You could also argue that VAPID is a relatively uncommon word; WordAndPhraseInfo says it's the 29,372nd most widely used word in the English language, so it's not incredibly uncommon, but not particularly common either.
I'd have expected it to be far higher, frankly – maybe around the 4.2 range. Of course it's also possible it will climb over the course of the day. And it's also worth noting that it took WordleBot four guesses to solve it, so it's definitely not easy.
Four was also my score today, not helped by my random start word being BLARE. That gave me only a yellow A to play with, and left me with 193 possible solutions. There were better results out there for some, but not many truly great ones. CRANE left 187, for instance, and SLATE 201. The best openers today were a couple of rarer choices: PARSE (11) and SAINT (14).
Coincidentally, SAINT was my second word; with L and R ruled out, S, N and T were the best consonants to play, and the I paired well with the A, which I'd placed in its most common location.
It's not a word I've used often before, but SAINT worked really well, cutting my options to a mere four: MAGIC, MAXIM, MAFIA and VAPID. Unfortunately, I completely missed the last of those, getting too hung up on the MA--- format.
Ultimately, that didn't matter. I would have played MAFIA or MAGIC next anyway, even if I'd known VAPID was a possibility. I went for MAFIA because I had a nagging sense that MAGIC had been a past Wordle answer (it had – game #607 in February 2023) and though it wasn't correct, it left me with only one answer.
However, I didn't know that at the time – because VAPID hadn't been on my list. Cue panic! But not for too long; stared at the board for a few minutes and eventually spotted that it was an option, then decided it was indeed the only option. I played it next and collected my 4/6.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I've been playing Wordle every day for more than two 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 #1042, Friday 26 April: VAPID
- Wordle #1041, Thursday 25 April: INTRO
- Wordle #1040, Wednesday 24 April: OVERT
- Wordle #1039, Tuesday 23 April: ROVER
- Wordle #1038, Monday 22 April: LASER
- Wordle #1037, Sunday 21 April: JOLLY
- Wordle #1036, Saturday 20 April: LUCID
- Wordle #1035, Friday 19 April: RAISE
- Wordle #1034, Thursday 18 April: FACET
- Wordle #1033, Wednesday 17 April: TITHE
- Wordle #1032, Tuesday 16 April: SHANK
- Wordle #1031, Monday 15 April: EQUIP
- Wordle #1030, Sunday 14 April: BLIMP
- Wordle #1029, Saturday 13 April: STEEL
- Wordle #1028, Friday 12 April: WHINY
- Wordle #1027, Thursday 11 April: LOUSE
- Wordle #1026, Wednesday 10 April: BROTH
- Wordle #1025, Tuesday 9 April: MERGE
- Wordle #1024, Monday 8 April: BREED
- Wordle #1023, Sunday 7 April: VOILA
- Wordle #1022, Saturday 6 April: FINCH
- Wordle #1021, Friday 5 April: WRIST
- Wordle #1020, Thursday 4 April: CLIMB
- Wordle #1019, Wednesday 3 April: PLAIT
- Wordle #1018, Tuesday 2 April: SERUM
- Wordle #1017, Monday 1 April: FROND
- Wordle #1016, Sunday 31 March: TABOO
- Wordle #1015, Saturday 30 March: FORCE
- Wordle #1014, Friday 29 March: REALM
- Wordle #1013, Thursday 28 March: SPEAK
- Wordle #1012, Wednesday 27 March: STUNG
- Wordle #1011, Tuesday 26 March: MAYOR
- Wordle #1010, Monday 25 March: SALLY
- Wordle #1009, Sunday 24 March: TOWEL
- Wordle #1008, Saturday 23 March: RISEN
- Wordle #1007, Friday 22 March: DECAY
- Wordle #1006, Thursday 21 March: SHADE
- Wordle #1005, Wednesday 20 March: LINGO
- Wordle #1004, Tuesday 19 March: ABIDE
- Wordle #1003, Monday 18 March: SPELT
- Wordle #1002, Sunday 17 March: SNORT
- Wordle #1001, Saturday 16 March: TOXIN
- Wordle #1000, Friday 15 March: ERUPT
- Wordle #999, Thursday 14 March: SINCE
- Wordle #998, Wednesday 13 March: LOCAL
- Wordle #997, Tuesday 12 March: HEAVE
- Wordle #996, Monday 11 March: PESKY
- Wordle #995, Sunday 10 March: GRASP
- Wordle #994, Saturday 9 March: CHEER
- Wordle #993, Friday 8 March: EARLY
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 last year and is still going strong in 2024.
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' Crossword 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.
4. Answers are never plural.
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.
10. All answers are drawn from Wordle's list of 2,309 solutions. However…
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 4 above), but Wordle will accept it as a guess.
