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 #1049) - 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 #1049) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1049) - 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 #1049) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Wordle hints (game #1049) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1049.
- Today's Wordle answer is black.
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 #1049)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 3
- WordleBot's score: 3
- Best start word performance*: PLANE (13)
- My start word performance: AVOID (195)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Today's Wordle answer (game #1049) is… EBONY.
The letter E is an important one in Wordle for an obvious reason – it's by far the most common in the game. As I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, it appears in 1,086 of Wordle's 2,309 original solutions, and crops up 1,280 times in total (because it's also very likely to be repeated). But the one place where it isn't common is at the start of an answer.
Then again, no vowels are particularly likely to start a Wordle word. If you were to order all of the letters by the percentage of games in which they appear in the first position, compared to the percentage in which they appear elsewhere (the kind of calculation that interests an extremely exciting person such as myself), you'd find that E, O and I stand out: only 5.85% of E's appearances are at the start, with O at 5.44% and I at 5.07%. (Y is even lower, at 1.42%, while X is at 0%.)
OK, so maybe I've got a little lost in the weeds here, but the point is that while E is incredibly likely to be in a Wordle answer, it's really not that likely to start one, comparatively at least.
Is that the reason why EBONY has a reasonably high average score of 3.9? It's probably one factor at least. Another is the presence of B – which in contrast to E, appears with great frequency at the head of the word, but rarely elsewhere. At least O, N and Y are all in sensible places…
What is certain is that few of the best start words helped much. CRANE was an outlier, leaving 17 answers, while PLANE was even better at 13, but none of WordleBot's top 20 dipped into single figures, and the likes of STARE (248) and SLATE (328) were in disaster territory.
The same fate befell my random starter, AVOID – which left 195 possible answers. The fact that I still scored a 3/6 was almost entirely down to luck. For my second guess, I played TRUCE; with A and I ruled out, and O already green, I wanted to include both U and E, while T, R and C were among the most common consonants still available.
WordleBot said it was a solid guess, and told me after the game that it had narrowed down my options to a half dozen: GOOEY, HOOEY, EBONY, EPOXY, PEONY and EBOOK. I didn't think of the first two – and I'm not sure I'd have included them if I had – and completely missed EBOOK too, but the other three were all on my list. Or rather, two of them were – because I knew EPOXY had been a past Wordle answer.
You may wonder how I can possibly recall it, given that EPOXY appeared in March 2022, soon after the game had first exploded in popularity. But this was one of the first big controversies after the game blew up, and I still remember the anger with which some people responded to its appearance, simply because it was "too obscure".
Anyway, EPOXY stuck in my mind, which left EBONY and PEONY – and the former seemed a more likely answer than the latter. I played it prepared to be proven wrong, but got lucky again and scored my sixth 3/6 in the past nine games.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1048)
In a different time zone where it's still Thursday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1048, 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 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.
- 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 E.
E is the most common letter to end a Wordle answer by far. That's one of the reasons why many of the best start words, including SLATE, CRANE, CRATE and STARE, all end with one.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1048.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is a small segment.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1048)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 2
- WordleBot's score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SLICE (obviously! But also PLACE with 1, SLATE and TRICE with 4)
- My start word performance: SLEPT (4)
* From WordleBot's Top 20 start words
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1048) was… SLICE.
There'll be lots of lovely 2/6s available today, because SLICE is another very easy Wordle with a very low average score of 3.6. Multiple start words cut down the options list drastically today, which is hardly surprising given the letters SLICE is made from. It really should be a simple one for most Wordlers.
Letter-wise we're in very, very common territory. As you'll no doubt know by now – and as I detail in my analysis of every Wordle answer – S is by far the most likely letter to start a Wordle solution, and E the most likely to end one. That's one of the key reasons why so many of the best Wordle start words have that format: SLATE, STALE, STARE and indeed SLICE itself are all in the top 20 openers, according to WordleBot.
But don't dismiss the in-between letters, either. L, I and C are all in the top 10 letters by frequency and all feature in many people's first guesses. And even if you didn't get lucky today – maybe you started with CRANE, which only contains two of them, for instance – you'll still have had a good chance of a 3/6 simply because these letters are all ones that it makes sense to play early on.
I didn't even need to worry about that, because my first word – chosen at random – was SLEPT. That gave me two greens and one yellow, and left me with only four possible solutions. And better still, SLICE was by a distance the most obvious of these; the others were SLIME, SLIDE and SLAKE. OK, so on an individual basis they were all equally likely to be the answer, but letter-wise I was always going to play a C before an M, D, or K.
So, SLICE it was for me, and I duly scored a 2/6 – my first for nearly two months. Yes, it was a lucky one that didn't owe a lot to skill, but I'll take it anyway.
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 #1048, Thursday 2 May: SLICE
- Wordle #1047, Wednesday 1 May: DIARY
- Wordle #1046, Tuesday 30 April: PROWL
- Wordle #1045, Monday 29 April: CRAFT
- Wordle #1044, Sunday 28 April: PRUNE
- Wordle #1043, Saturday 27 April: GLEAM
- 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
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.
