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 Monday'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 #1697) - 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 #1697) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1697) - 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 #1697) - clue #4 - ending letter
What letter does today's Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today's Wordle is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1697) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1697.
- Today's Wordle answer is a setting, or a place where something occurred.
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 #1697)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 3
- WordleBot's score: 4
- My skill score: 99
- My luck score: 76
- My start word performance: SANER (16 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (36)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Today's Wordle answer (game #1697) is… SCENE.
I've been using SANER as my start word for a couple of months now, and while one part of me wants to try something new – including, maybe, returning to random start words – a bigger part of me is very happy with it indeed.
As you'd imagine, it's greatly improved my average; in the 80 games since I began using SANER, I've averaged 3.5875, compared to 3.8 exactly for the 80 games before that. Of course game difficulty will have varied over that period too, but with SANER I've been 0.355 below the global average, against 0.12125 below it when I was using random openers.
This is no surprise, because as everyone knows by now, a good start word makes a massive difference to your chance of solving Wordle in the minimum number of guesses. And SANER is a good start word – albeit not one of the top 20. WordleBot rates it as 55th, but it scores 95/99 and the difference between it and, say, SLATE, won't be huge when averaged across hundreds of games.
Today at least, it was one of the best (or luckiest) choices, leaving me 16 options. Better still, though, was CRANE – which left only two. And that goes some way to explaining why SCENE has a low average score of 3.6 despite containing a repeated letter.
I had a green S and yellow N and E on the board, and took something of a risk with my second guess: I left out all three letters and played OPTIC. This was based on the fact that I wanted to narrow down the letters that might follow an S, with T, P and C all among them. The O and I, meanwhile, would help me identify the (probable) second vowel to add to the E.
WordleBot loved this, telling me it was "one of my top picks in this situation" and awarding me 99/99 for skill. And it was lucky, too, giving me a yellow C but ruling out the other letters and reducing my shortlist to a single option, SCENE. And what's more, I beat the 'Bot again. What is going on?
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1696)
In a different time zone where it's still Monday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1696, 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 C.
C is a very common starting letter in Wordle – in fact, it's the second most common of all, behind only S.
- 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 O.
O is a middling ending letter. It ranks 12th in this regard, and finishes 58 Wordle answers in total.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1696.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is a musical instrument.
Yesterday'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
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1696) was… 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 Sunday'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 yesterday; its chosen 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 yesterday, 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.
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 #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
- Wordle #1649, Wednesday 24 December: SPOOL
- Wordle #1648, Tuesday 23 December: GLINT
- Wordle #1647, Monday 22 December: CONCH
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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