NYT Wordle today — answer and hints for game #1,020, Thursday, April 4
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, which remains the best of all the main Wordle alternatives.
SPOILER WARNING: Today’s Wordle answer and hints are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.
Wordle hints (game #1020) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has a vowel in one place*.
* 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 #1020) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is C.
C is a very common starting letter in Wordle – in fact, it’s the second most common of all, behind only S.
Wordle hints (game #1020) – 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 #1020) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is B.
B is not a common ending letter for a Wordle word. In fact, it only occurs there 11 times in total across the game’s 2,309 original answers.
Wordle hints (game #1020) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1020.
- Today’s Wordle answer is to move upwards.
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 #1020)
- NYT average score: 3.7
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SLICE (5 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: KNAVE (583)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1020) is… CLIMB.
I don’t remember every game of Wordle I’ve played (there have now been more than 1,000 of them, after all), but this is definitely a contender for the strangest yet. Also the luckiest, the most unlikely, the most tumultuous, the most [insert overblown adjective of your choice]…
I certainly don’t think I’ve had one like this before: zero on the first guess, zero on the second guess, then, improbably, a one-in-40 shot on the third. Nailed it.
I’m not sure that WordleBot believed me that I really did guess correctly on that third attempt, and maybe you won’t either. But I did! Honest!
It would have been better still if this was a tough Wordle with a high average score, but it wasn’t; WordleBot says people are solving it in 3.7 guesses, which places it on the easier side of things, albeit not to the extent that yesterday’s PLAIT was.
Unlike PLAIT, very few of the best Wordle start words made much headway. SLICE was the best of the top 20, leaving only five possible solutions, while PLACE (10) and TRICE (16) were the only others to dip below 30. But because none of those words are among the most popular openers, I doubt they had much impact here.
Neither did mine, which was KNAVE. This was a “decent” opening word, according to WordleBot, but I think it was being overly kind given that a K at the start and a V elsewhere don’t tend to be all that helpful most of the time. Anyway, it didn’t give me any letters and left me with 583 solutions to sift through (in theory).
I didn’t really put a foot wrong after that. My second guess was ROUST, which was chosen because R, S and T were three of the most common consonants left, and they fit nicely with two of the three remaining vowels. I nearly chose COURT, and if I had done then I’d have uncovered a green C and cut my answers to six. But I didn’t, so I had to suffer the indignity of a second consecutive blank. Still, WordleBot confirmed afterwards that ROUST would have been its choice too, so I think I was unlucky there rather than misguided.
There’s no doubting that my luck changed on the third guess, though. There were 40 words still open to me, but I hadn’t got as far as listing any; with no clues to work with, that seemed pointless. Instead, I looked at the remaining letters and simply tried to play the five most common as per my analysis of every Wordle answer. The five in CLIMB weren’t quite the most common – I should really have played a Y or D (or both) instead of the M or B – but CLIMB seemed like a good narrowing-down word, so I played it.
And, to my amazement, it was right, meaning that I jumped straight from 10 gray letters to five green ones in one go. I have a suspicion I’ll remember this Wordle even when I’m 2,000 games in…
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1019)
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1019, 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 P.
P is a very common first letter among Wordle answers. It’s the fifth most common in the alphabet and begins 141 solutions in total.
- 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 T.
T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1019.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a braid.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1019)
- NYT average score: 3.4
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SLATE, PLATE, LEAST (2 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: SPINE (32)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1019) was… PLAIT.
If ever you needed proof of how much easier the best Wordle start words can make a game, look no further than Wordle 1,019. Of the top 20 openers as designated by WordleBot, 15 left fewer than 30 solutions and eight cut the options to 10 or under. Three words left only two answers, and given that one of those was SLATE – the fifth most popular starting word today – it’s no surprise that PLAIT has an ultra-low average score of just 3.4.
That said, I didn’t need WordleBot’s average to predict that it would be a low score. As I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, A is the second most common letter overall, T is the fifth, L is the sixth and I is the seventh. P is slightly below the rest (it’s 15th), but it is the fifth most common starting letter, behind only S, C, B and T.
My opener, SPINE, wasn’t as successful as the likes of SLATE, but it gave me two yellow letters and cut the options to 32. I didn’t come up with them all – nowhere near it – but assembled a list of about a dozen including TOPIC, PUPIL, PILOT, PITCH, PICKY, PITHY, PIGGY and IMPLY. Notice a theme there? Yes, the Y at the end of many.
Unfortunately, that rather blinded me to the fact that T also appeared in lots of them, so I played IMPLY rather than WordleBot’s suggestion of (wait for it) PLAIT. Yes, if I’d played the best narrowing down word I’d have scored a 2/6 today. I didn’t go with that because I wanted the Y in there, but IMPLY still cut my options to six so it wasn’t a disaster.
After that I got lucky. The only words still on my list were PLAID, PLAIT and PILOT, because I missed TULIP, PILAF and POLIO, and of those three I decided to go for PLAIT for no particular reason beyond the fact that the T at the end of PLAIT was more common than the D at the end of PLAID, and the A more common than the O in PILOT. I expected to need a fourth guess, but fortune smiled on me and I scored my third 3/6 in a row.
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 #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
- Wordle #992, Thursday 7 March: CLONE
- Wordle #991, Wednesday 6 March: TEARY
- Wordle #990, Tuesday 5 March: HUNCH
- Wordle #989, Monday 4 March: FLAME
- Wordle #988, Sunday 3 March: STATE
- Wordle #987, Saturday 2 March: URBAN
- Wordle #986, Friday 1 March: FORTY
- Wordle #985, Thursday 29 February: IMAGE
- Wordle #984, Wednesday 28 February: DEVIL
- Wordle #983, Tuesday 27 February: SENSE
- Wordle #982, Monday 26 February: OFTEN
- Wordle #981, Sunday 25 February: SMITH
- Wordle #980, Saturday 24 February: PIPER
- Wordle #979, Friday 23 February: APART
- Wordle #978, Thursday 22 February: HEAVY
- Wordle #977, Wednesday 21 February: BUILD
- Wordle #976, Tuesday 20 February: MATCH
- Wordle #975, Monday 19 February: PRICE
- Wordle #974, Sunday 18 February: RIDGE
- Wordle #973, Saturday 17 February: PSALM
- Wordle #972, Friday 16 February: STASH
- Wordle #971, Thursday 15 February: ASCOT
- Wordle #970, Wednesday 14 February: TALON
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.
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