NYT Wordle today — answer and hints for game #1072, Sunday, May 26
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 #1072) – 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 #1072) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and C.
Wordle hints (game #1072) – 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 #1072) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is L.
L is a really common letter to find at the end of a Wordle. There are 155 games that finish with an L, and it ranks as the fifth most likely letter there.
Wordle hints (game #1072) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1072.
- Today’s Wordle answer is an edge.
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 #1072)
- NYT average score: 4.7
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 5
- Best start word performance*: LEAST (26 remaining answers)
- My start word performance: WELSH (46)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1072) is… BEVEL.
Oof! This one caught me by surprise. When I solved today’s Wordle in three, I figured it might have an average score in the low fours; I got a little lucky with my game, but it didn’t seem too difficult. However, WordleBot is reporting that it has an average of 4.7, which makes it one of the 10 toughest Wordles so far in 2024.
There are a couple of explanations for that. One is the repeated E. As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, E is the most commonly repeated letter in the game, but there are still only 172 games in which an E appears more than once, which makes it a little less likely than getting a single W, for instance. It is, however, slightly more likely than getting a single V – which also happened today; there are 152 of those among Wordle’s 2,309 original solutions.
So that’s two complications, but there are arguably two more. One is other similar words: BEZEL and LEVEL only differ by one letter, and both were played in large numbers by people today. The other is that BEVEL is not that common a word either. The website Wordandphraseinfo.com ranks every English-language word in order of how often they’re used, and it has BEVEL at 33,522nd. To put that in context, yesterday’s answer TITAN (see below) is at 18,666th and Friday’s GLIDE is 7,201st.
As a measure of how difficult it is, WordleBot only scored a five! So I’m really rather pleased with my 3/6.
I started pretty well, with my random WELSH giving me a green E and yellow L, and cutting my options to 46. In contast, CRANE – WordleBot’s favorite opener – left 273 answers, SLATE 98 and STARE 248.
I had more luck on my second guess. I chose TRAIL because it added in the next four most common letters, other than the fact that I swapped O for I. I did this because it enabled me to play TRAIL, which put T, R, A and L all in very common positions; I left out the E because it was already confirmed, and though this meant I couldn’t solve it in two, that was always unlikely.
WordleBot wasn’t entirely sure – it only called it a “solid” guess – but TRAIL gave me the green L at the end of the word, and cut those 46 options to three, so it was definitely a lucky one. And I was about to get another slice of good fortune. Those three words were LEVEL, BEVEL and BEZEL, and I knew that playing any of them would rule out one more answer and therefore guarantee me a 4/6. But which to chose?
Well, LEVEL was the more common word, so going for that might have made sense – but it contained two repeated letters and I was aware that I might have missed another option or two. With that in mind, playing as many letters as possible made sense, as it would give me more information if I had missed something. That left BEVEL or BEZEL, and I figured V was a more useful letter than Z, so decided to go with that.
It was not an important decision anyway, because I had a 1/3 chance with any of them, but I had to find some way to choose between them, so went with BEVEL and was again pleasantly surprised to see all five letters turn green and give me my 3/6.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1071)
In a different time zone where it’s still Saturday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1071, 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 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.
- 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 N.
N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it’s the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1071.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a giant.
Yesterday’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
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1071) was… 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.
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 #1071, Saturday 25 May: TITAN
- 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
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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