NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1474, Wednesday, July 2
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 Tuesday’s puzzle instead then click here.
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 #1474) – 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 #1474) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is I.
I is only the 19th most common starting letter in Wordle, and just 34 of the original 2,309 answers begin with it.
• There are no 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.
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Wordle hints (game #1474) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is R.
R is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – it’s actually the 4th most common there, behind E, Y and T.
Wordle hints (game #1474) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1474.
Today’s Wordle answer is to acquire with (generally) negative consequences.
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 #1474)
(Image credit: New York Times)
NYT average score: 3.6
My score: 3
WordleBot’s score: 3
My skill score: 94
My luck score: 81
My start word performance: FREER (43 remaining answers)
WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (3)
Tomorrow’s start word: STORK
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1474) is… INCUR.
Ah, the relief of a three after successive fives, is there any sweeter feeling? Well, yes – for instance a two after successive sixes. But I’m quibbling; this was a good day.
INCUR does not appear to be a difficult Wordle; it has an average score of 3.6 at the time of writing. However, some of that will doubtless be due to the performance of some of the best Wordle start words.
CRANE, the ‘Bot’s top choice overall, left only three options – which I think were INCUR, SCORN and RUNIC, though that is a guess. IRATE, which is a relatively popular choice albeit not in the top 10 best options, left only two – the answer plus IVORY.
I had a few more to contend with, after my opening FREER left 43 possible solutions despite only giving me a green R.
The fact that it was green at the end of the answer, but without an E before it, meant I knew I was looking at an AR, OR, IR or UR word. There are not too many of these, certainly compared to ER. OR is the next most likely, with 34 answers, while AR is on 20, UR on nine and IR on seven.
I wanted to cover off the first two of those on my second guess, but also wanted to include some common consonants. I spent ages looking for a good word, and eventually decided to play COLAS – which is not a choice I’ve ever made before, but which I may do again, because it worked quite nicely.
In fact, that’s downplaying it – it worked brilliantly, giving me a yellow C but ruling out the other letters. Amazingly, this now left INCUR as the only possible answer, so I was able to score my very welcome three.
In a different time zone where it’s still Tuesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1473, 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 M.
M is a middling letter when it comes to starting a word. It sits 10th in the rankings, with 107 occurrences in the 2,309 answers.
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 #1473.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer is not fit for eating.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1473)
(Image credit: New York Times)
NYT average score: 4.1
My score: 5
WordleBot’s score: 4
My skill score: 93
My luck score: 36
My start word performance: THEFT (844 remaining answers)
Hang on – that can’t be the answer because it’s spelled wrong. MOULDY has a U in it, right? Except it doesn’t if you are in the United States, where it is indeed spelled MOLDY.
Is this fair? Well, it certainly won’t have made this game easier for those of us in the UK, Australia or New Zealand, where the longer variant is generally preferred.
It’s also worth noting that when the NYT bought Wordle, it removed the word FIBRE, presumably because it thought the UK spelling would be too difficult for Americans. Clearly there was no such consideration here.
And please don’t use the argument that the NYT is a US publication; Wordle is a global game, and its creator Josh Wardle is a Brit. The NYT could easily have either a) left in both US and UK spellings or b) removed any that might be confusing to one part of the audience. Either approach would have been fairer.
I promise I’m not just ranting for the sake of it, either: I scored a five that would possibly have been a four if not for that missing U.
My game began very poorly, with THEFT drawing a blank and leaving 844 options. Still, I had E and T ruled out, so was able to play CRONY next in search of the last letter.
This is a strategy I employ whenever I can, because there are fewer distinct letters that regularly end Wordle than the number that start it. Want proof? The top 10 starting letters only make up about 70% of all first letters in the game, but the top 10 ending letters constitute 85% of the total.
Three of those top 10 ending letters, T, H and E, had already been ruled out by THEFT. CRONY gave me three more, in the form of R, N and Y. There was a strong chance I would uncover at least one letter here.
And so I did, with the Y turning green. I got a yellow O, too, and my shortlist was reduced to 30.
I knew it couldn’t be an OO word now, which was a relief, but I did find a lot of words that might contain a repeated S or L: BOSSY, LOSSY, MOSSY, MOUSY, LOUSY, SOUPY, LOLLY, JOLLY and FOLLY, for instance.
With that in mind, I played SOLID – and it was indeed a very solid guess, giving me two more greens and one extra yellow.
There was now only one answer – or so I thought. That was DOLLY, because the D had to be at the start; after all, there was no word that had the pattern -OLDY.
Oh but how wrong I was… I played DOLLY with an air of confidence, then came crashing down when it was wrong. I looked again, realized that MOLDY would be correct if I spelled it incorrectly (for me – I know that language is not immutable etc etc), and eventually scored my five.
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 #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
Wordle #1430, Monday 19 May: PITCH
Wordle #1429, Sunday 18 May: LIVID
Wordle #1428, Saturday 17 May: GROWN
Wordle #1427, Friday 16 May: FIFTH
Wordle #1426, Thursday 15 May: EAGER
Wordle #1425, Wednesday 14 May: BONGO
Wordle #1424, Tuesday 13 May: AWARE
Wordle #1423, Monday 12 May: BICEP
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 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.
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’ Games 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.
12. The NYT has added in some of its own words, that weren’t in that list of 2,309 solutions. More will undoubtedly come over the next few years.
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 Tuesday’s puzzle instead then click here. It’s time for your guide…
