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 Saturday'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 #1667) - 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 #1667) - clue #2 - first letter
What letter does today's Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is Q.
Q is one of the least likely letters to start a Wordle answer – but then again, it's also one of the least common letters in the game anywhere!
Wordle hints (game #1667) - 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 #1667) - 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 #1667) - clue #5 - last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1667.
- Today's Wordle answer is a particle.
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 #1667)
- NYT average score: 4.1
- My score: 4
- WordleBot's score: 4
- My skill score: 93
- My luck score: 42
- My start word performance: SANER (83 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (60)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Today's Wordle answer (game #1667) is… QUARK.
QUARKs are elementary particles that I don't know enough about to properly explain, except to say that they're very small – like, really, really, really small – and that they come in pairs that together form either a proton or neutron, the building blocks of atoms.
It's therefore fair to say that most matter – tables, chairs, smartphones, basketballs, strawberries, cats, clowns, almost everything really – is made of QUARKs. Except there are some things that aren't, because there are also electrons and dark matter and as I said, I'm not an expert so I'll stop writing now.
And anyway, I may have misunderstood all of this, because I'm not a physicist – so if you know better than please do correct me in the comments below, because there's nothing more dangerous than a little knowledge wielded without care.
One thing I do know about the QUARK is that it doesn't really mean anything at all – the word is is taken from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, which contains the line "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" in a way that's entirely unconnected to fundamental particles or indeed physics at all.
Whatever it means, I like it as a Wordle answer, because it contains a Q, which we don't see many of in the game. There are only 29 solutions out of the 2,309 originals that feature a Q, almost all of which (23) have it at the start of a word, as it is here. The K at the end is a lot more common – there are 113 of these – but overall that letter only ranks 20th out of 26, with 230 usages in total.
With two uncommon letters, QUARK should therefore be a tough one to solve, but the A and R in the middle will have made things easier; STARE, for instance, would have given you two green letters and cut the options to 17 right away.
Still, its average of 4.1 points towards it being more difficult than the norm, and both WordleBot and I had to settle for a four today.
My opening SANER had left 83 words, but TRAIL cut those to 14. I found nine of them – ROACH, HOARY, HOARD, BOARD, GUARD, QUARK, WHARF, CHARD and CHARM – but missed DWARF, ROACH, AMARO, OVARY, AWARD and, er, CHARY (no, me neither).
I decided to play HOARD, because it was the best I thought I could do; in reality, there were several better options including the 'Bot's suggestion of HOWDY. As it happened, though, HOARD was lucky and left only one solution – meaning I dipped just below the average and scored my four. I'll happily take that today.
Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1666)
In a different time zone where it's still Saturday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1666, 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 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.
- 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 C.
C is a fairly uncommon letter to end a Wordle answer – it's only the 16th most likely to be found there.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1666.
- Yesterday's Wordle answer is frenzied or agitated.
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1666)
- NYT average score: 3.9
- My score: 3
- WordleBot's score: 4
- My skill score: 92
- My luck score: 67
- My start word performance: SANER (28 remaining answers)
- WordleBot's start word performance: SLATE (202)
- Tomorrow's start word: SANER
Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1666) was… MANIC.
Don't panic! Well, unless you played PANIC when you should have gone with MANIC, in which case it may have been justified.
That was the biggest complication to this game, which is otherwise mercifully free of the kind of traps that have characterised so many recent games.
In my column for Friday's EIGHT, I completely missed a really big one of those, in that it was part of the -IGHT trap that features 10 possible solutions (WIGHT, RIGHT, TIGHT, LIGHT, FIGHT, SIGHT, MIGHT, NIGHT, BIGHT plus EIGHT itself).
That just goes to show that how the game plays out for you can be entirely dependent on your first word, or the first two at least – my SANER ruled out all of those other -IGHT words straightaway, so it never even occurred to me.
Here, SANER ruled out all but 28 options, and I still had four left after I went with MOLDY next: MANIC, MANIA, MANGA and MANNA.
I recalled MANGA as a past Wordle answer (game #1087) and knew that MANIC would give me the answer in four even if it was wrong, so there was no risk to me playing it. The fact that it was right was an unexpected bonus.
But if I hadn't had that green M on the second guess… well, then maybe I would have played PANIC at some point instead, as 14% of Wordlers did on the third guess and another 10% on the fourth. That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes…
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 #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
- Wordle #1646, Sunday 21 December: QUILT
- Wordle #1645, Saturday 20 December: WHITE
- Wordle #1644, Friday 19 December: MYRRH
- Wordle #1643, Thursday 18 December: RUGBY
- Wordle #1642, Wednesday 17 December: GRASS
- Wordle #1641, Tuesday 16 December: SEGUE
- Wordle #1640, Monday 15 December: DODGY
- Wordle #1639, Sunday 14 December: SWING
- Wordle #1638, Saturday 13 December: MISER
- Wordle #1637, Friday 12 December: TRUCK
- Wordle #1636, Thursday 11 December: GUESS
- Wordle #1635, Wednesday 10 December: ERASE
- Wordle #1634, Tuesday 9 December: SNIDE
- Wordle #1633, Monday 8 December: GRAVY
- Wordle #1632, Sunday 7 December: FLUTE
- Wordle #1631, Saturday 6 December: WAIST
- Wordle #1630, Friday 5 December: WAIST
- Wordle #1629, Thursday 4 December: TULIP
- Wordle #1628, Wednesday 3 December: HASTE
- Wordle #1627, Tuesday 2 December: CACTI
- Wordle #1626, Monday 1 December: LEACH
- Wordle #1625, Sunday 30 November: MUGGY
- Wordle #1624, Saturday 29 November: GRUFF
- Wordle #1623, Friday 28 November: COLIC
- Wordle #1622, Thursday 27 November: REMIT
- Wordle #1621, Wednesday 26 November: HOVEL
- Wordle #1620, Tuesday 25 November: PLEAD
- Wordle #1619, Monday 24 November: DOUGH
- Wordle #1618, Sunday 23 November: BUNNY
- Wordle #1617, Saturday 22 November: THICK
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.
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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