NYT Wordle today — answer and hints for game #1065, Sunday, May 19
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.
Your Wordle expert
Your Wordle expert
Marc McLaren
Wordle hints (game #1065) – 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 #1065) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is H.
H is not a particularly common starting letter in Wordle: only 69 games begin with it, and it ranks in 15th place.
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.
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Wordle hints (game #1065) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is H.
H is a regular visitor to the final spot in a Wordle word. It occurs 137 times at the end of a Wordle answer, making it the sixth most common letter there.
Wordle hints (game #1065) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1065.
Today’s Wordle answer is a small problem or a connection.
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 #1065)
(Image credit: New York Times)
NYT average score: 5.1
My score: 3
WordleBot’s score: 4
Best start word performance*: TRICE (4 remaining answers)
My start word performance: PITCH (3)
* From WordleBot’s Top 20 start words
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1065) is… HITCH.
OK, so this was a tough one. Not for me – I did it in three, thanks to an incredibly fortunate first guess. But seemingly for everyone else. WordleBot says it has an average score of 5.1, making it the hardest since JOLLY about a month ago, and one of only six games to reach five or more so far in 2024.
There are two aspects to its difficulty. One is the repeated H, which is unlikely even among repeated letters. According to my analysis of every Wordle answer, H is only repeated 10 times across Wordle’s 2,309 original solutions, and the last time it happened – HUNCH, game #990 in March, the score there was also 5.1.
But also like HUNCH, this is a game with multiple possible answers if you change one letter. Primarily that will be the first one, which could have given you WITCH, PITCH or DITCH, but also if you change the vowel then HUTCH or HATCH.
Some of the best start words might have made it easier, with TRACE leaving only 12 answers, SLICE 10 and TRICE four, but none of those are among the most popular, so most people will have faced an uphill battle to keep the score down today.
Not me, though, and that was down to pure chance. The thing about random start words is that very occasionally they perform incredibly well, and today was one of those days. I began with PITCH – which left me only three possible solutions: WITCH, HITCH and DITCH.
I nearly guessed it outright, because a 4/6 would be the worst-case scenario, but ultimately decided to guarantee a three instead and played HAWED. This gave me the green H that meant the solution had to be HITCH. Lucky me – unlucky everyone else.
In a different time zone where it’s still Saturday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1064, too.
Wordle yesterday had 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).
The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was 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.
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 Y.
Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1064.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer is salty.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1064)
(Image credit: New York Times)
NYT average score: 4.5
My score: 4
WordleBot’s score: 4
Best start word performance*: CRANE (17 remaining answers)
Is it just me or is BRINY an odd word to be a Wordle solution? It’s not exactly a word that’s used very often, is it… There’s nothing wrong with it, technically – I just can’t imagine many people will have thought of it as an option. That’s probably why it currently has an average score of 4.5, making it the hardest game since JERKY more than a week ago.
Like that word, it has a similarly spelled alternative that many people will have played before trying BRINY, in this case BRING. According to WordleBot, 2.8% of people played BRING on the second guess compared to 1% who played BRINY, but on the third guess it was 13.6% versus 9.1% and even on the fourth guess 15% of people went for BRING. BRINK also gathered plenty of guesses – 11% on the third guess and 17% on the fourth.
Letter-wise it’s not too bad, with the middle three letters very common in general and those at either end being common in their relative positions. As I show in my analysis of every Wordle answer, B is the third most common starting letter and Y the second most common at the end.
So it’s only really the relative obscurity of the word that must be causing that high overall average – well, that and the performance of the most popular start words. CRANE, WordleBot’s favorite, left only 17 possibles but most of the rest of the top 20 were above 30 and several were well into three figures.
I got very lucky with mine, though. My random word generator gave me DRUNK, which had the twin positives of giving me two green letters – R and N – and also of ruling out K, meaning I knew (later on) that it couldn’t be BRINK.
That left me with only 18 solutions, and I very nearly turned that good fortune into a 3/6. I found as many possible answers as I could, and came up with a list of 10: CRONY, CRANE, CRONE, PRINT, PRONE, PRONG, BRINE, BRING, WRONG and WRING. The others, according to WordleBot, were FRONT, GRANT, TRANS, IRONY, FRANC, ARENA, BRONC and (of course) BRINY. I’d be surprised if most of those were actual answers – but then again, I’d have said that about BRINY, and would have been wrong.
In order to narrow down those words I played BICEP, which couldn’t be correct but which would have ruled out all of my answers other than maybe leaving a 50/50 between CRANE and CRONE. However, I was 99% certain that CRANE had been a past Wordle answer, so had discounted that anyway. WordleBot wasn’t so sure about BICEP, because its own answer list was different to mine. But it mattered not, because it did almost exactly what I’d hoped it would do, giving me a green B at the start and a yellow I.
I was delighted – I’d surely score a 3/6 now, because the word could only be BRING. But sadly, I’d missed BRINY completely, so had the brief shock of seeing that last letter stay gray, and had to settle for a four once I realized what the real solution was.
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 #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
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
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.
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…
