Today's Wordle Answer,
Hints & Clues
Spoiler-free hints for Wordle, NYT Connections, and NYT Strands. Get just enough help to keep your streak alive — no account, no ads, no nonsense.
Wordle — Midnight ET
Wordle Answer Today
Today's 5-letter word with 5 escalating hints. Start with a gentle nudge — reveal the full answer only if you need it.
Connections — Midnight ET
Connections Answers
All 4 color-coded groups for today's NYT Connections. Category hints revealed first — full answers on demand.
Strands — Midnight ET
Strands Answer Today
Today's theme, the spangram, and all hidden words. Hints come first so you can still feel the satisfaction of finding them.
Today's Quick Preview
A taste of today's answers — click through for full hints and solutions.
Best Wordle Starting Words
These words cover the most common letters in Wordle answers. Use one as your daily opener to maximize early green and yellow tiles.
How This Site Works
We give you the minimum help you need — hints first, answer last.
Get stuck on the puzzle
Play Wordle, Connections, or Strands on the NYT website until you need a little help. Come here when you're down to your last guess.
Choose your hint level
We start with gentle clues — number of vowels, first letter, general meaning. Reveal only as much as you need.
Reveal the full answer
Still stuck? The complete answer is one tap away. Your streak is saved. No judgment — millions of players do this daily.
Bookmark and return
We update every night at midnight ET. Bookmark this page and you'll always have today's answers waiting.
Recent Wordle Answers
Past answers to help you spot patterns. Wordle recently began repeating some words — this archive keeps you from wasting guesses on already-used solutions.
| Date | Puzzle | Answer | Difficulty | Vowels |
|---|
Everything You Need to Know
Complete guides to Wordle, Connections, and Strands — strategy, timing, and how to keep your streak alive.
What Is Today's Wordle Answer?
Every day at midnight Eastern Time, the New York Times releases a new Wordle puzzle — one five-letter word that every player in the world must guess within six attempts. Our Wordle answer page gives you five progressive hints before revealing the solution, so you still get the satisfaction of solving it with a little help.
We update within minutes of the midnight ET reset, making us one of the fastest sources for today's Wordle answer online. Players on the East Coast, West Coast, and everywhere in between will find today's answer ready and waiting here.
What Time Does Wordle Reset in the US?
Wordle resets based on your local device time — not a fixed global server time. Here's the reset schedule across US time zones:
| Time Zone | Reset Time |
|---|---|
| ET | 12:00 AM (midnight) |
| CT | 11:00 PM (previous night) |
| MT | 10:00 PM (previous night) |
| PT | 9:00 PM (previous night) |
Connections and Strands use a fixed midnight ET reset — so West Coast players get these two games 3 hours before Wordle refreshes for them.
Best Wordle Starting Words (2026)
The best starting words contain the most commonly occurring letters in five-letter English words. Using a strong opener maximizes your information on the first guess:
| Word | Why It Works |
|---|---|
| CRANE | C, R, A, N, E — covers 5 high-frequency letters |
| STARE | S, T, A, R, E — hits the most common consonants |
| RAISE | Great for finding vowels in positions 2-3-5 |
| AUDIO | 4 vowels — best for vowel-heavy unknown words |
| SLATE | Popular among competitive players for letter spread |
There is no single "perfect" starter — it depends on your strategy. For maximum information: CRANE. For vowel coverage: AUDIO. Try both for a week and see which suits you better.
Why Is Today's Wordle Different From My Friend's?
Wordle uses your local device time for its daily reset. A player in New York gets the new puzzle at midnight ET, while a player in Los Angeles gets it at midnight PT — which is 3 hours later in real time. However, the actual word is the same for everyone worldwide on any given calendar date. So if your friend in London is playing "Tuesday's Wordle," they're playing the same word as you — just at a different clock time.
How to Play NYT Connections
NYT Connections gives you 16 words and asks you to sort them into four groups of four. Each group shares a hidden theme. The groups are color-coded by difficulty:
- Yellow (Easiest) — Straightforward grouping, like "types of fruit" or "words for happy"
- Green (Medium) — Slightly tricky. May involve wordplay or less obvious links
- Blue (Hard) — Cultural references, idioms, or lateral thinking required
- Purple (Hardest) — Deliberately misleading. Often a hidden pattern or double meaning
You get 4 mistakes before the game ends. The golden rule: always start with Yellow and save Purple for last. Once you've confirmed three groups by elimination, Purple becomes much easier — even if you never crack its theme.
Connections resets at midnight Eastern Time every day — the same time as Wordle for East Coast players.
How to Play NYT Strands
NYT Strands is a themed word search where every hidden word connects to the day's theme. Unlike a traditional word search, letters can connect in any direction — including winding paths. The puzzle always contains one special word called the spangram that spans the entire grid from one side to the other.
Strands doesn't penalize wrong guesses — instead, finding non-theme words earns you hints. Use this strategically when you're stuck.
Key Strands strategy:
- Find the spangram first — it spans the full board and immediately reduces the search area
- Start at the edges — the spangram must touch both sides of the grid
- Think about the theme — before searching, brainstorm words related to today's topic
- Short words hide in corners — 4-letter theme words are often tucked in grid corners
Strands resets at midnight Eastern Time, the same as Connections.
Why Do Millions Search for Wordle Answers Daily?
Wordle was played 5.3 billion times in 2024, according to the New York Times. With over 2 million daily active players, it's inevitable that millions of people get stuck each day — especially when the NYT uses obscure words, double letters, or words with multiple possible answers right up to the last guess.
The key reason people search for help: Wordle only gives you one puzzle per day. Fail, and your streak resets to zero. You then wait 24 hours for another chance. That urgency — combined with long streaks players don't want to break — drives millions of daily searches for "wordle answer today."
Using a hint site is exactly like using the answer key at the back of a crossword book. It's built into how puzzle culture works. Millions of players use sites like ours every morning with their coffee — it's part of the ritual.
Wordle Tips to Improve Your Game
- Never repeat grey letters. If a letter goes grey, it's not in the word — stop including it in future guesses. This sounds obvious, but stress makes players forget.
- Yellow letters ARE in the word. Move them to a different position — don't drop them. Many wrong 5th guesses come from ignoring yellow tiles.
- Think about double letters. ABBEY, STALL, PIZZA, PROOF all have repeated letters. Don't rule out a letter just because one instance was grey.
- Use your 4th guess to eliminate. If you're stuck with 3 possible answers, use guess 4 to test letters from all three options — even if it can't be the answer in hard mode.
- Common endings. Words ending in -ER, -LY, -ED, -ST, -AL, and -NT are all very common in Wordle. If your early guesses suggest one of these patterns, lean into it.
- Check this archive. Wordle now repeats some old answers. Knowing the last two weeks of answers prevents you from guessing words already used.
Frequently Asked Questions
Today's Wordle answer is on our Wordle page with 5 progressive hints. We update within minutes of the midnight ET reset every day. The answer is hidden behind a reveal button so you can choose how much help you want.
Wordle resets based on your local device time — midnight ET (12:00 AM) for East Coast players, 11:00 PM CT, 10:00 PM MT, and 9:00 PM PT the previous evening for other time zones. NYT Connections and Strands reset at midnight ET only — a fixed global time.
Absolutely not. Think of it exactly like the answer key at the back of a crossword or Sudoku book — it's there when you're stuck, and using it is part of how puzzle culture has always worked. We give you hints first so you can still feel the satisfaction of solving it yourself, with a little nudge. Millions of players use hint sites every single morning as part of their daily routine.
You get 6 guesses in Wordle. Each guess must be a valid 5-letter English word. After each guess, tiles change color: Green = correct letter, correct position. Yellow = correct letter, wrong position. Grey = letter not in the word at all. Use the color feedback from each guess to narrow down the answer.
Wordle uses your local device time for its daily reset. A player in New York gets the new puzzle at midnight ET, while a player in Los Angeles gets it at 9:00 PM PT the previous evening — 3 hours earlier in real time. The actual word is the same for everyone worldwide on any given calendar date, just available at different clock times depending on your timezone.
NYT Connections gives you 16 words in a 4×4 grid. Find four groups of four words that share a hidden theme. You have 4 mistakes allowed. Groups are color-coded: Yellow (easiest), Green (medium), Blue (hard), Purple (hardest). Start with Yellow, save Purple for last. Shuffle the board if you're stuck — seeing words in different positions often reveals hidden connections.
The spangram is the bonus word in NYT Strands that spans the entire grid — touching both sides (or top and bottom). It's always directly related to the day's theme and is highlighted in yellow when found. Finding the spangram first is the single most effective strategy in Strands, as it immediately reduces the number of letters left to work with and often reveals the theme if you haven't guessed it yet.
Yes — as of February 2026, Wordle began repeating previous answers. This means a word you saw months ago could appear again. Our Recent Wordle Answers archive above tracks the last two weeks of answers so you can avoid guessing already-used words. We recommend checking the archive before your first guess each morning.
The best starters are words that contain the most commonly occurring letters across all 5-letter English words. Top picks: CRANE (C, R, A, N, E), STARE (S, T, A, R, E), RAISE (R, A, I, S, E), AUDIO (A, U, D, I, O — great for vowel coverage), and SLATE. Avoid starting with rare letters like Q, Z, X, or J — they almost never appear in Wordle answers.