NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1385, Friday, April 4

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.

Wordle hints (game #1385) - 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 #1385) - clue #2 - first letter

K is not a common starting letter in Wordle by any measure. In fact it ranks 22nd out of 26; a mere 20 answers begin with a K.

Wordle hints (game #1385) - 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 #1385) - clue #4 - ending letter

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.

Wordle hints (game #1385) - clue #5 - last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1385.

• Today's Wordle answer is eaten by whales.

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 #1385)

• NYT average score: 5.0
• My score: 4
• WordleBot's score: 4
• My start word performance: GLADE (113 remaining answers)
• WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (66)

Today's Wordle answer (game #1385) is… KRILL.

Did you know that there are some 700 trillion krill living in the waters of the Southern Ocean around Antartica? It's just as well that there are so many of these shrimp-like creatures, because a single blue whale can apparently eat up to 3.6 million in a day. And I thought I had a problem with portion control.

You may well not have known those facts about krill, or that they are bioluminescent – I didn't, until I looked it up on Google. But I do know that this is a very difficult Wordle, and I was pretty sure of that before WordleBot told me so.

According to the 'Bot, KRILL has an average score of 5.0 at the time of writing – which makes it the third toughest Wordle so far in 2025, behind only ROWER (5.6) and FUZZY (5.1), and level with WAFER. It is very difficult indeed.

As to why that is, well the K at the start doesn't help; it's the seventh least common letter in the game, and the fourth least likely to begin a Wordle answer (alongside J). The repeated L is another problem, albeit this is a likely letter to be repeated compared to most.

However, I suspect that there are two bigger problems.

The first is that KRILL is the only answer out of the 2,309 original solutions that begins with KR. It's simply not a combination you would expect. TR, yes, of course. CR, absolutely. DR and BR and GR and FR and PR – there are plenty of them. Even WR and IR and UR have a few examples each. But for KR, it's just this one.

That may well have meant that your brain simply didn't consider the possibility until everything else had been ruled out.

The second issue is that KRILL is simply an uncommon word in general. I mean yeah, whales probably say it all the time – but the rest of us not so much.

Oh, and there's a third extra problem here (so, a fifth in total), which is that the -RILL format does have a couple of other possibilities: DRILL and TRILL and FRILL and GRILL being the obvious ones, with BRILL also a contender.

Indeed, based on WordleBot's analysis it appears that more people played one of those other -RILL words than KRILL on the fourth guess (44% vs 35%). Many people will have scored a five, and plenty will have got a six. Some poor souls will have lost their streak.

I managed a four myself, thanks to the perfect third guess. I'd started reasonably enough, with GLADE leaving 113 options, then SPOIL cut that to nine.

I found eight of them – TRILL, FRILL, KRILL, CHILL, QUILL, VINYL, TWIRL and WHIRL – but missed TWILL. I then dismissed VINYL, because I remembered it as a past Wordle answer (TWIRL, WHIRL and CHILL have all appeared before too, but I didn't recall those).

I needed a word that would narrow down my seven options, and found it in TRUNK; this was guaranteed to give me the answer in four, so long as I hadn't missed any.

And much to my delight, it worked perfectly. The K at the end turned yellow, which meant KRILL had to be the solution and I solved it in a full guess below the average.

How did you do today? Send me an email or let me know in the comments.

Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1384)

In a different time zone where it's still Thursday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1384, 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 S.

S is the most common starting letter in the game, featuring in 365 of Wordle's 2,309 answers. In fact, it's almost twice as likely to begin an answer as the next most common starting letter, 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 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.

Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1384.

• Yesterday's Wordle answer is to remove hair.

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1384)

• NYT average score: 3.8
• My score: 4
• WordleBot's score: 4
• My start word performance: UNCUT (1,110 remaining answers)
• WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (87)

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1384) was… SHEAR.

I might start a petition for WordleBot to remember past Wordle answers.

Right now, it doesn't do that, and while I'm sure that makes sense in terms of it treating every guess on its own merits for a more objective analysis, it can make for some ridiculously unfair assessments.

For instance, yesterday I faced a choice of four words on my third guess: SWEAR, SPEAR, SHEAR and SMEAR.

As everyone will surely remember, SPEAR was the answer to game #1,353 exactly one month ago, so I immediately ruled that out and played SHAME next. This would guarantee me the answer in four, because the H would indicate SHEAR, the M would point to SMEAR and if neither of those two letters changed color than it would have to be SWEAR.

But this was not good enough for WordleBot. It awarded me only for 70 for skill and complained that "Although SHAME left only one possible solution, some of this was luck: If the solution had been SWEAR, there still would have been two words to choose from."

Which is true, of course, UNLESS YOU REMEMBERED THAT SPEAR WAS AN ANSWER ONLY A FEW WEEKS AGO, which everyone will have done. I deserved a 99 for skill there and I want the NYT to fix this, please, or I will continue to whinge.

As it happened, SMEAR had also been a past answer (game #414), but I didn't remember that. If I had done, I'd potentially have scored a three here instead, because I would have had a straight 50/50 between SWEAR and SHEAR and who knows which I would have chosen…

Anyway, that's irrelevant – and I'm happy enough with my four. SHEAR has an average of 3.8, but given that my opening UNCUT left more than 1,000 possible solutions, the fact that I narrowed it down in three more guesses is not terrible.

Now, if only I can convince the 'Bot of that too…

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 #1384, Thursday 3 April: SHEAR
• Wordle #1383, Wednesday 2 April: CURSE
• Wordle #1382, Tuesday 1 April: JEWEL
• Wordle #1381, Monday 31 March: BOOTY
• Wordle #1380, Sunday 30 March: QUOTA
• Wordle #1379, Saturday 29 March: SORRY
• Wordle #1378, Friday 28 March: VERSE
• Wordle #1377, Thursday 27 March: SHEET
• Wordle #1376, Wednesday 26 March: ELBOW
• Wordle #1375, Tuesday 25 March: SHELF
• Wordle #1374, Monday 24 March: ANGLE
• Wordle #1373, Sunday 23 March: DOPEY
• Wordle #1372, Saturday 22 March: AMBLE
• Wordle #1371, Friday 21 March: NUDGE
• Wordle #1370, Thursday 20 March: BASTE
• Wordle #1369, Wednesday 19 March: SPARK
• Wordle #1368, Tuesday 18 March: TIMER
• Wordle #1367, Monday 17 March: LASSO
• Wordle #1366, Sunday 16 March: STAMP
• Wordle #1365, Saturday 15 March: LADLE
• Wordle #1364, Friday 14 March: PIECE
• Wordle #1363, Thursday 13 March: CHASE
• Wordle #1362, Wednesday 12 March: MANGO
• Wordle #1361, Tuesday 11 March: TRACK
• Wordle #1360, Monday 10 March: SPITE
• Wordle #1359, Sunday 9 March: GREED
• Wordle #1358, Saturday 8 March: NAVEL
• Wordle #1357, Friday 7 March: TROOP
• Wordle #1356, Thursday 6 March: ALERT
• Wordle #1355, Wednesday 5 March: SCRUM
• Wordle #1354, Tuesday 4 March: CHECK
• Wordle #1353, Monday 3 March: SPEAR
• Wordle #1352, Sunday 2 March: DEITY
• Wordle #1351, Saturday 1 March: HOVER
• Wordle #1350, Friday 28 February: FUZZY
• Wordle #1349, Thursday 27 February: LODGE
• Wordle #1348, Wednesday 26 February: AWARD
• Wordle #1347, Tuesday 25 February: DRYER
• Wordle #1346, Monday 24 February: GLAND
• Wordle #1345, Sunday 23 February: OTTER
• Wordle #1344, Saturday 22 February: CREAM
• Wordle #1343, Friday 21 February: CLOVE
• Wordle #1342, Thursday 20 February: ROACH
• Wordle #1341, Wednesday 19 February: MADLY
• Wordle #1340, Tuesday 18 February: INDIE
• Wordle #1339, Monday 17 February: TRAIL
• Wordle #1338, Sunday 16 February: SUAVE
• Wordle #1337, Saturday 15 February: CROOK
• Wordle #1336, Friday 14 February: DITTY
• Wordle #1335, Thursday 13 February: RUMBA
• Wordle #1334, Wednesday 12 February: RAPID

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.