NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1482, Thursday, July 10

• July 9, 2025

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? 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.

Your Wordle expert

Your Wordle expert

Marc McLaren

Wordle hints (game #1482) – clue #1 – Vowels

* 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 #1482) – clue #2 – first letter

J is the least common letter overall in Wordle, but is only the fourth least likely starting letter. That’s because it begins 20 out of the 27 answers it appears in (Y, Z and X are all less common starting letters).

Wordle hints (game #1482) – clue #3 – repeated letters

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 #1482) – clue #4 – ending letter

Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.

Wordle hints (game #1482) – clue #5 – last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1482.

• Today’s Wordle answer is nervous and on 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 #1482)

• NYT average score: 5.2
• My score: 5
• WordleBot’s score: 5
• My skill score: 95
• My luck score: 20
• My start word performance: BOTCH (938 remaining answers)
• WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (356)
• Tomorrow’s start word: PESTO

Today’s Wordle answer (game #1482) is… JUMPY.

Okay, this is not a drill. Today’s game is difficult. Really, really difficult. So difficult that both WordleBot and I scored a five. So difficult that the average is 5.2.

That’s super-high, historically high; only 11 Wordles ever have had a higher average. It’s the third toughest in 2025 and it will surely end many streaks.

To put it in context, here are the toughest Wordles yet:

As you can see, JUMPY with its 5.2 average nestles just below the likes of BOXER, JOLLY and JOKER, and level with JUDGE, NANNY and PIPER.

You may also notice that three of those six games I just mentioned have something in common: they all begin with J. Actually, three also end in ER, but it’s the J that’s relevant here, because of course JUMPY also starts with that letter.

J is the least common letter in the game, with only 27 appearances among the 2,309 original solutions, so of course it would make it more difficult here.

To add to that, none of the other letters are in the top 10; U is the closest, at 11, with Y at 12. For that reason, very few start words were helpful today, and even the ‘Bot’s CRANE left 356 choices.

My word, BOTCH, was worse still – a lot worse. In fact, it left 938 options, so I was never going to solve this in fewer than four guesses.

I could have managed that with a little more luck, but sadly my luck score today was 20/99, versus 95 for skill – so the board was stacked against me throughout.

SANER was, said the ‘Bot, a “terrific” choice, while GUILD was deemed “wonderful”. But at the end of all that I still had only one letter, a green U.

Amazingly, I only had six possible answers, though – of which I found four: PUFFY, PUPPY, FUZZY and JUMPY. The other two were MUMMY, which I knew had been a past Wordle answer, and YUMMY (which I simply missed).

Playing PUFFY would have guaranteed me no worse than a five and might have got a four, so I went with that and though it was wrong it did point the way to JUMPY in the end. One of those days where a five feels like a relief.

Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1481)

In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1481, 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 N.

N is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter. Only 37 games begin with it and it ranks just 18th in this regard.

• 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 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.

Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1481.

• Yesterday’s Wordle answer is new, or an example of longform prose.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1481)

• NYT average score: 4.0
• My score: 3
• WordleBot’s score: 3
• My skill score: 94
• My luck score: 68
• My start word performance: CRONY (69 remaining answers)
• WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (90)
• Tomorrow’s start word: BOTCH

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1481) was… NOVEL.

They say everyone has a NOVEL in them, right? Or is it that everyone merely thinks they have a novel in them? Whichever it is, I certainly think I have a novel in me, although I realize that adds weight to the idea that it’s the latter rather than the former.

The problem is the writing bit. Not because writing is hard; I’ve spent the best part of 30 years writing professionally, so that’s not a problem. No, the problem is that to write a novel you need to be disciplined, and I am anything but that.

Maybe if smartphones and Steam Decks and Amazon Prime Day sales and Spotify and the best Netflix shows and all the other distractions in the world didn’t exist it would be different. If I fell through a wormhole and found myself in 1725 I’m sure I’d find the time to write one. Except I probably wouldn’t, because I’d spend all my free time trying to work out how to turn lead into gold or something.

Anyway, the closest I’ll probably get to writing a novel is writing the word multiple times in the course of this column, and nobody is going to be putting this forward for the Booker Prize. Still, I did score a rather lovely and very welcome three, so that was some consolation.

As with Tuesday’s game, it has an average score of 4.0, although I’d suggest it’s easier than DREAD was. There is a V in the middle, sure, but the other letters are all very common and there are no obvious near-neighbor words beyond HOVEL, and nobody would play that over NOVEL.

My game began well before I’d even started, because my random word generator gave me CRONY as my start word. This is a fine Wordle word, with five common letters that are all in their most likely positions. I use it often as a narrowing-down option, and here it gave me two yellows and cut my shortlist to 69.

I wanted to play the N at the end of the word and the O in position #2, and figured I should include an E too. WOMEN let me do all of those things, although the ‘Bot suggested that HOTEL would have been better.

And it would, because it would have left only one word. WOMEN, in contrast, left me with seven – or so the ‘Bot said. However, six of those were ED-ending words that are almost certainly not going to be genuine solutions, so I didn’t consider any of them. In my head, NOVEL was the only possible solution, and so it proved in reality too.

It wasn’t exactly a thriller, then, but at least this story had a happy ending.

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 #1481, Wednesday 9 July: NOVEL
• Wordle #1480, Tuesday 8 July: DREAD
• Wordle #1479, Monday 7 July: STILT
• Wordle #1478, Sunday 6 July: ATRIA
• Wordle #1477, Saturday 5 July: BALER
• Wordle #1476, Friday 4 July: CURVE
• Wordle #1475, Thursday 3 July: POPPY
• Wordle #1474, Wednesday 2 July: INCUR
• Wordle #1473, Tuesday 1 July: MOLDY
• Wordle #1472, Monday 30 June: BLINK
• Wordle #1471, Sunday 29 June: WITTY
• Wordle #1470, Saturday 28 June: STUMP
• Wordle #1469, Friday 27 June: PLAIN
• Wordle #1468, Thursday 26 June: OFFER
• Wordle #1467, Wednesday 25 June: COMFY
• Wordle #1466, Tuesday 24 June: ELITE
• Wordle #1465, Monday 23 June: ODDLY
• Wordle #1464, Sunday 22 June: THRUM
• Wordle #1463, Saturday 21 June: GLADE
• Wordle #1462, Friday 20 June: TAUPE
• Wordle #1461, Thursday 19 June: CURIO
• Wordle #1460, Wednesday 18 June: MUNCH
• Wordle #1459, Tuesday 17 June: PRANK
• Wordle #1458, Monday 16 June: PETTY
• Wordle #1457, Sunday 15 June: QUAIL
• Wordle #1456, Saturday 14 June: GHOST
• Wordle #1455, Friday 13 June: BILGE
• Wordle #1454, Thursday 12 June: VIXEN
• Wordle #1453, Wednesday 11 June: PLAID
• Wordle #1452, Tuesday 10 June: TAFFY
• Wordle #1451, Monday 9 June: BOARD
• Wordle #1450, Sunday 8 June: LEASE
• Wordle #1449, Saturday 7 June: REUSE
• Wordle #1448, Friday 6 June: EDIFY
• Wordle #1447, Thursday 5 June: DATUM
• Wordle #1446, Wednesday 4 June: CEASE
• Wordle #1445, Tuesday 3 June: ADMIN
• Wordle #1444, Monday 2 June: PREEN
• Wordle #1443, Sunday 1 June: ROUGH
• Wordle #1442, Saturday 31 May: HABIT
• Wordle #1441, Friday 30 May: IDIOM
• Wordle #1440, Thursday 29 May: QUASH
• Wordle #1439, Wednesday 28 May: POLAR
• Wordle #1438, Tuesday 27 May: SPORT
• Wordle #1437, Monday 26 May: DRONE
• Wordle #1436, Sunday 25 May: GRIFT
• Wordle #1435, Saturday 24 May: SUEDE
• Wordle #1434, Friday 23 May: SHUCK
• Wordle #1433, Thursday 22 May: FOLIO
• Wordle #1432, Wednesday 21 May: ALARM
• Wordle #1431, Tuesday 20 May: BORNE

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 2025.

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.

Source

Looking for a different day? 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 Wednesday’s puzzle instead then click here. It’s time for your guide…