Today's Wordle hints and answer — solution #1,032, Tuesday, April 16 (2024)

Today's Wordle answer is moderately tricky. According to the New York Times' WordleBot, the average player completes Wordle #1,032 in 3.9 moves in both easy and hard modes.

Each day, we will update this article with Wordle hints and tips to help you find today's answer. And if the hints aren't enough, we'll even give you the answer, in case you're really stuck or just haven't had time to complete today's puzzle. Plus, we are also including an analysis of yesterday's puzzle, #1,031, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

So be warned: spoilers lie ahead for game #1,032. Only read on if you want to know today's Wordle answer!

Today's Wordle answer — hints to help you solve it

Our first tip is that you should use one of the best Wordle start words for every game you play. But if you want some more specific clues to today's Wordle answer, then here you go:

• It contains one of the five vowels.*
• There are no repeated letters.
• It contains just one of the five most common Wordle letters.

* By vowel, we mean A, E, I, O, U. There are other letters that are sometimes considered to be vowels, depending on how they are used.

Those hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Wordle answer. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then skip down further for that.

Alright then, here's a larger hint: Today's Wordle answer may make you go out on a limb.

What does today's Wordle start with?

The answer to Wordle #1,032 starts with S, so combined with the hints above you should now have all the clues you need to get the answer and not break a Wordle streak.

OK, it's now time to scroll down for the answer…

Today's Wordle answer

So, what is today's Wordle answer for game #1,032?

Drumroll, please — it'sSHANK.

Hello Wordlers. I made a bit of a meal out of today's puzzle, despite having three letters confirmed by the end of my second turn. I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles.

My starting word of ORATE — which contains all five of the most common Wordle letters — gave me a green 'A' right off the bat. That's good, but there are still a massive 81 possible answers with an 'A' in third spot, and without 'O', 'R', 'T' or 'E', according to WordleBot.

As you might imagine, plenty of WordleBot's best Wordle start words had that beat. PLANE leaves 20 answers in play, while PLANT knocks that down to 12. If you played SLANT, just four options would remain.

Regular readers will know that I like to play some combination of 'I', 'N', 'S', 'C' and 'L' on my second turn. And SLAIN was extremely efficient in that regard, trying four of them around my confirmed 'A'.

It went really well. 'S' turned green, and 'N' went yellow, leaving me with just seven possible answers, according to WordleBot*.

SNACK felt like a wise next move, and although the 'N' went yellow, it confirmed the word had to be S?ANK.

I could think of three options: SPANK, SWANK and SHANK. Unfortunately, I picked the wrong one first, trying SPANK.

I opted for SHANK over SWANK on my final go, as it felt marginally more likely. I was rewarded with a five-turn win.

Hopefully you did well today, Wordlers. See you tomorrow for another puzzle.

* These were: SHANK, SWANK, SPANK, SNACK, SNAFU, SNAKY and SWANG.

Yesterday's Wordle answer

Reading this in a later time zone? The Wordle answer for game #1,031 was EQUIP.

Hello Wordlers. A tricky one today. Even though it contains three vowels, two of them are relatively unusual (the 7th and 11th most common Wordle letters) and 'Q' is downright rare. In fact, it only features in second position in five Wordle answers!

ORATE didn't help much, as start words go. Just the 'E' turned yellow, leaving me with a massive 190 possible answers still in play.

Naturally, a fair few of WordleBot's best Wordle start words were more effective today. PLATE leaves 38 possible answers, while TRAIL drops that to 34. If you played SPLIT, just ten options would be left over.

I aim to play a mix of 'I', 'N', 'S', 'C' and 'L' on my second turn, but for some reason I was really struggling today.

Eventually, I came up with SPEND which was moderately effective. 'E' was ruled out in a second spot, and I also learned that 'P' was in the answer. That left seven possible solutions, according to WordleBot*.

Even though it wasn't a possible answer, on account of being a plural, I tried PILES next. This turned both 'P' and 'E' yellow in new positions, and gave me another confirmed letter in 'I'.

Now I knew the word had to have 'E' in either first or second position, but I was really struggling to come up with anything. Eventually, EQUIP occurred to me, and thankfully it proved to be correct.

Hopefully you did well today Wordlers. See you tomorrow.

* These were: EQUIP, EXPEL, PEPPY, PIXEL, BICEP, IMPEL and JULEP.

Previous Wordle answers

If you're looking for a list of older Wordle answers, we can also help. Here's a list going back 20 games.

• Wordle #1,031: EQUIP
• Wordle #1,030: BLIMP
• Wordle #1,029: STEEL
• Wordle #1,028: WHINY
• Wordle #1,027: LOUSE
• Wordle #1,026: BROTH
• Wordle #1,025: MERGE
• Wordle #1,024: BREED
• Wordle #1,023: VOILA
• Wordle #1,022: FINCH
• Wordle #1,021: WRIST
• Wordle #1,020: CLIMB
• Wordle #1,019: PLAIT
• Wordle #1,018: SERUM
• Wordle #1,017: FROND
• Wordle #1,016: TABOO
• Wordle #1,015: FORCE
• Wordle #1,014: REALM
• Wordle #1,013: SPEAK
• Wordle #1,012: STUNG

Wordle tips — how to win at Wordle

The best tip I can give is to use one of thebest Wordle start words. I can't stress this enough — it makes a massive difference.

Without one, you'll be scrabbling around in the dark trying (and possibly failing) to find the right five letters (or possibly fewer) out of the 26 possibles. But clever people (not me) have done the math and identified the best start words based on both frequency in English and frequency among Wordle answers. So use them!

Secondly, think about combinations, especially at the start and end. Some options are far more common than others — for instance, SH, ST, CR and CH all feature frequently.

Vowels obviously need consideration too: not all Wordle answers will contain more than one, but plenty do, and some even have three. A good Wordle start word should have used a couple, but if they don't feature you might well want to try another one or two on your next go. Plus, remember the Y — this sometimes acts as a surrogate vowel, and is easy to forget. It also appears at the end of plenty of words.

Finally, try out possibilities. So long as you don't press 'Enter' you can try possible answers to see how they look on screen. Put in likely letters plus any you know are definitely in the word, then mentally change one to the other available options. This technique has worked for me multiple times, and it's particularly helpful when the word in question is not an obvious one (like FJORD or ISLET).

But if you're still struggling with Wordle, check out how Tom's Guide's Wordle experts have honed their strategy after playing a lot of Wordle after it first launched.

We also have plenty of Wordle tips and tricks to share, like how we've analyzed every Wordle answer used to look for trends and have some further advice for you there.And if you're new to the game you should also take a look at our What is Wordle? guide.

What else should I know about Wordle?

Wordle officially launched in October 2021, but actually started in June of that year and celebrated its first birthday on June 19, 2022. (You can read my thoughts on the 5 things Wordle needs to improve if it's to keep us playing for its third year.)

However, it only grew in popularity towards the end of the year, then went viral in January as the world woke up to its charms. In fact, it proved so successful that The New York Times bought Wordle for a seven-figure sum in early February and the game is now part of NYT Games.

It's played via the NYT Games website here, and is entirely free. Both the NYT and the game's creator, Josh Wardle, have stated that it will remain free. Some people think that Wordle has got harder since the NYT takeover, but it really hasn't.

Wordle is a simple game in which your challenge is to guess a five-letter word in six attempts. Each time you guess, you're told which of your chosen letters are in the target word, and whether they are in the right place.

If a letter is in the correct place, it turns green. If it's in the word but in the wrong place, it turns yellow. And if it's not in the word at all, it turns gray.

There's just one puzzle a day, and everyone completes the same one. It resets at midnight each day. You'll find more information about the game in our What is Wordle? article.

NYT Strands answer

If you've solved Wordle and need help with other games from the New York Times, we suggest you check out our guide on today's NYT Strands answer, which will give you an overview of how the game works and how to solve the puzzle.

Wordle Alternatives

If you're eager for another game to pass the time while you wait, we've put together a list of the best Wordle alternatives.

Other Wordle alternatives to try are the ultra-stressful (but very good) Squabble and the soccer-themed, Who Are Ya?. We also like the geography-based Wordle clone Worldle, the Star Wars-themed SWordle and the math-based Mathler.

There are certainly plenty of options once you've finished Wordle for the day!