NYT Wordle today — answer and hints for game #1071, Saturday, May 25
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.
Wordle hints (game #1071) – 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 #1071) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is T.
T is one of the most common starting letters in the game, beginning 149 of Wordle’s 2,309 answers. That gives it a ranking of fourth in the alphabet, behind only S, C and B.
Wordle hints (game #1071) – 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 #1071) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is N.
N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it’s the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.
Wordle hints (game #1071) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1071.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a giant.
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 #1071)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SAINT (4 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: NAVEL (87)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1071) is… TITAN.
Generally, repeated letters make for much harder Wordles. But not always, and not today. That’s probably because all five letters in TITAN – or four, given that one is doubled up – are very common. As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, T is the fifth most likely letter to be repeated, behind E, O, L and A, and the fifth most common letter overall. I is the seventh most common, A the second and N the ninth, so anyone playing the odds will have had a good chance even with that repeated character.
Start words will definitely have helped too. TRAIN, which is just outside of WordleBot’s top 20, left only one answer – and given that it’s played by 1-2% of Wordlers each day, that will have impacted the average score. Even words that didn’t fare so well – for instance STARE and CRANE, which left 88 and 65 possible solutions respectively – will have provided a couple of yellow letters.
A good second guess will have cut those options down considerably, as they did for me. My random starter was NAVEL – so a couple of yellows for me too, and 87 possible solutions. And my “great” (according to WordleBot) second guess, GRANT, duly cut that list to a mere five.
Better still, some of those five were fairly unlikely to be actual answers. I had TITAN, JUNTA and ANTIC written down, but missed ANTSY and AUNTY, the other two on WordleBot’s list. All five could be answers, sure, but TITAN was the one that seemed a surefire Wordle answer to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if JUNTA and ANTIC are too, but the others seem more marginal. Of course, I could just be saying that because I didn’t find them, and am trying to justify that to myself. You can be the judge of that.
Anyway, I knew that if I played TITAN I’d be guaranteed to leave only one of ANTIC or JUNTA if I was wrong, so as with yesterday’s game (see below) I played it without expectations and was again pleasantly surprised at the result.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1070)
In a different time zone where it’s still Friday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1070, 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 G.
G is the eighth most common starting letter, featuring in 115 Wordle answers. It’s often paired with an L to make GL—, but I’m not revealing whether that’s the case today.
- 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 #1070.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a smooth movement.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1070)
- NYT average score: 3.6
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- Best start word performance*: SLICE (6 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: CEASE (124)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1070) was… GLIDE.
Finally we have a relatively easy Wordle, in the form of the 3.7-average GLIDE. This is the lowest score for a Wordle answer since PINCH more than a week ago, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it dropped lower than that still as the day goes on. [NB: it did, to 3.6]
It’s hardly a shock that people are finding it easy to solve, because it has three very common letters in a common format, namely -LI-E. This is found in nine Wordle answers in total, including one of WordleBot’s top 20 start words, SLICE. As you might expect, that helped that word to the best result for any of the openers today, leaving only six possible answers.
That said, SLICE is not a common word to start with. SLATE, on the other hand, very much is, and that cut the numbers to 16 – so not a bad result either.
CEASE, which I began with, was nowhere near as fortunate, leaving 124 words to choose from. But my good luck was still to come. For my second guess, I played PRINT which WordleBot said was a “terrific” choice and which cut those answers to seven, despite only giving me a green I and nothing else. That wasn’t the lucky bit. No, that came on the third guess.
I’d drawn up a shortlist and come up with WHILE, OLIVE, GUIDE, GLIDE, OXIDE and GUILE. The one I missed was VOILE, which I doubt is a genuine answer. The common theme among most of my words was an L in second or fourth place and an E at the end. Three also had a G at the start, and three a D in fourth. Putting all that together, it made sense to play GLIDE; even if it was wrong, I’d rule out all but one of the other answers, guaranteeing me a 4/6 at worst. Actually, that’s not quite true, because it could have left a 50/50 between WHILE and VOILE, but as I hadn’t thought of the latter, that was not a problem I worried about.
As far as I was concerned, GLIDE was a good word to play – and WordleBot agreed again, choosing the same word. I expected to need one more guess, but got lucky with my 7-1 shot and scored a three.
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 #1070, Friday 24 May: GLIDE
- Wordle #1069, Thursday 23 May: SWISH
- Wordle #1068, Wednesday 22 May: EXALT
- Wordle #1067, Tuesday 21 May: DINGO
- Wordle #1066, Monday 20 May: NICER
- Wordle #1065, Sunday 19 May: HITCH
- Wordle #1064, Saturday 18 May: BRINY
- Wordle #1063, Friday 17 May: TUTOR
- Wordle #1062, Thursday 16 May: STALL
- Wordle #1061, Wednesday 15 May: PINCH
- Wordle #1060, Tuesday 14 May: AMASS
- Wordle #1059, Monday 13 May: CUMIN
- Wordle #1058, Sunday 12 May: OUTER
- Wordle #1057, Saturday 11 May: TIDAL
- Wordle #1056, Friday 10 May: MEDIA
- Wordle #1055, Thursday 9 May: JERKY
- Wordle #1054, Wednesday 8 May: PIOUS
- Wordle #1053, Tuesday 7 May: MUSTY
- Wordle #1052, Monday 6 May: SHAVE
- Wordle #1051, Sunday 5 May: DECAL
- Wordle #1050, Saturday 4 May: VALUE
- Wordle #1049, Friday 3 May: EBONY
- 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
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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