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 Thursday'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 #1700) - 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 #1700) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is M.
M is a middling letter when it comes to starting a word. It sits 10th in the rankings, with 107 occurrences in the 2,309 answers.
Wordle hints (game #1700) - 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 #1700) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is H.
H is a regular visitor to the final spot in a Wordle word. It occurs 137 times at the end of a Wordle answer, making it the sixth most common letter there.
Wordle hints (game #1700) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1700.
- Today's Wordle answer is to get things off others without offering anything in return.
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 #1700)
- NYT average score: 4.3
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 5
- My skill score: 98
- My luck score: 48
- 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 #1700) is… MOOCH.
Another day, another Wordle milestone: it's 1,700 up for the word game that we all love. The NYT duly celebrated by giving us a really difficult additional answer, as in one that wasn't among the original list drawn up in 2021.
It's been a while since we've had one of those, too – OOMPH was game #1662 back in early January. Coincidentally, MOOCH contains an M and a double-O just like that answer did, and also coincidentally it has an identical average score of 4.3. These kind of things please my pattern-loving brain.
Double-O words generally don't make me happy, but I'm pretty pleased with a four here, not least because the 'Bot could only manage a five. We both had poor starts with more than 300 words left after the opening guess, but I got lucky with my follow-up of CLOUT, which gave me yellow C and green O and reduced the shortlist to a trio of POOCH, HOOCH and MOOCH.
I found them all, of course – it was obvious that the C would move to the fourth position before an H, and the extra O was also a given at this stage. But which of them should I choose?
Well, what I should really have done next – and what I would usually do here – would be to play a word that would guarantee me a four. HUMPS, for instance, would have definitively chosen between the three words. But I decided to risk a five in the pursuit of a three, so played POOCH next instead; maybe the sight/sound of my dog snoring on the couch next to me was the deciding factor.
POOCH was wrong, which meant I still had a 50/50, and a five could very much have been on the cards. And indeed, that's what happened to the 'Bot, which had the same choice. But whereas it went with HOOCH next, I avoided the repeated H and instead played MOOCH. Fortune smiled upon me, so I escaped with a four.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1699)
In a different time zone where it's still Thursday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1699, 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 #1699.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is a strong, wavelike forward movement.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1699)
- NYT average score: 3.7
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 3
- My skill score: 96
- My luck score: 47
- My start word performance: SANER (12 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (36)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1699) was… SURGE.
The first thing I'll say is that my report on Wednesday's game was entirely wrong. Well, not entirely wrong – but wrong in terms of its difficulty. I said on Wednesday that it was being solved in 3.1 guesses, but when I looked later it was at 4.1. I have no idea why it changed to that extent – there's often a little variation in the average over the course of 24 hours, but I've never before seen a change of this magnitude. Very strange.
I also have no idea whether yesterday's will change in the same way, but I can at least say that at the time of writing it stands at 3.7. And that means that for the first time since CHIDE more than a week ago, I failed to beat the average. Oh, and I lost to WordleBot too.
It wasn't my best day, then, but my skill score of 96 implies that I didn't do too much wrong. I'd be far harder on myself than the 'Bot was, though, because my opening SANER left only 12 options, and I'd certainly have expected to have converted that into a three…
Then again, this is another one of those S---E words. There are a massive 74 of these answers, the highest number for any combination of first and last letter – and that makes it something of an ordeal to narrow them down.
I didn't really do that, with my second guess of PITCH failing to uncover any new letters and still leaving four words. These were SURGE, SWORE, SERUM and SERVE, and I wasn't able to convert a one-in-four chance into a victory. Oh well.
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 #1699, Thursday 12 February: SURGE
- Wordle #1698, Wednesday 11 February: VEGAN
- Wordle #1697, Tuesday 10 February: SCENE
- Wordle #1696, Monday 9 February: CELLO
- 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
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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