Techradar - All the latest technology news

NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1400, Saturday, April 19

Looking for Wordle hints? I can help. Plus get the answers to Wordle today and yesterday.

Apr 19, 2025 - 00:06

NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1400, Saturday, April 19

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 Friday'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.

Wordle hints (game #1400) - 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 #1400) - 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.

Wordle hints (game #1400) - clue #3 - repeated letters

Does today's Wordle have any repeated letters?

• 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.

Wordle hints (game #1400) - clue #4 - ending letter

What letter does today's Wordle end with?

• The last letter in today's Wordle is X.

X is the sixth least likely ending letter in Wordle – and today's game is one of only eight in which it finishes the solution!

Wordle hints (game #1400) - clue #5 - last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1400.

Today's Wordle answer is where emails live.

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 #1400)

NYT Wordle answer for game 1400 on a green background — (Image credit: New York Times)

NYT average score: 4.5
My score: 3
WordleBot's score: 4
My start word performance: EYING (62 remaining answers)
WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (81)

Today's Wordle answer (game #1400) is… INBOX.

And so Wordle reaches its 1,400th birthday. It's now well into its middle ages – as am I, but it's in considerably better shape than I am, with no signs of sagginess around the middle.

Far from it: it's just as likely to confound and confuse now as it ever was, and INBOX is a great example of it at its best.

After all, this is a word that is in incredibly wide usage – anyone who has email will use or at least read the word INBOX on a daily, if not hourly, basis. But is it an easy word to find in Wordle? Nope!

Why? Well, not only does INBOX contain an X, the third least common letter in the game, ahead of only Q and J, but that X is at the end. There are only eight answers among the original 2,309 that finish with an X, so it's really not something you'd think to play for.

The other letters are in unusual places for the most part, too. Not many Wordles start with an I, not many Ns go in the second position, B is pretty unlikely to appear in the middle… you get the idea.

Despite all that, I managed to score a three, which is ironic given that INBOX management is one of my worst skills in real life. Current unread email tally in my work INBOX: 2,404. Unread tally in my personal account: 114,327. Yes, really. I have a suspicion I will never get through all of those.

Still, I'm being judged here on my ability to uncover yellow and green letters, rather than reply to people (fortunately), so I'll call this one a victory – albeit a very lucky one.

I began with EYING – an unusual starter, but one which performed fairly well in giving me a yellow N and I, and cutting my options to 62.

My second guess was a straightforward one; TRAIN positioned the two yellow letters in common places, and added in three more common letters.

This appeared not to have worked too well, in that both letters remained yellow. However, it reduced my options to eight, so I was moving in the right direction and might have expected a four from here.

That would have been satisfactory, because INBOX currently has an average of 4.5 – making it one of the most difficult games this year. But the Wordle gods had other plans for me.

That's because somehow I neglected to find any of the other words. Seriously – INBOX was the only one I could think of. Given that there was a potential -INCH trap lurking here, with WINCH, CINCH, PINCH and FINCH, my failure to spot anything else could have been a disaster.

In fact, if INBOX had been wrong, I would still have had seven words to choose from, and might well have ended up with a six – or even my first ever proper fail.

But nobody ever said Wordle was fair. I typed in INBOX thinking it was the only answer, and when all five letters turned green was rather pleased with myself. It was only when I later consulted WordleBot that I realized that I'd cheated fate here.

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

Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1399)

In a different time zone where it's still Friday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1399, 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 D.

D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.

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 E.

E is the most common letter to end a Wordle answer by far. That's one of the reasons why many of the best start words, including SLATE, CRANE, CRATE and STARE, all end with one.

Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1399.

Yesterday's Wordle answer is a slow, mournful song.

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1399)

NYT Wordle answer for game 1399 on a green background — (Image credit: New York Times)

NYT average score: 4.1
My score: 4
WordleBot's score: 4
My start word performance: SLING (27 remaining answers)
WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (46)

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1399) was… DIRGE.

DIRGE is one of those words whose meaning has evolved in recent years, or that is in the process of evolving at least. Formally, it means a slow, mournful piece of music – something for a funeral, for instance.

However, I've also seen it used (and used it myself, back in my music journalist days) to mean a bland, boring song – which is an alternative definition found on Wiktionary, for instance.

Either way, it makes for a moderately hard Wordle answer, with an average score of 4.1 at the time of writing.

I'm a little surprised it's as high as that, because there's nothing fundamentally difficult about it. Maybe it's the fact that the more obvious RIDGE uses the same five letters but in a different order, or that the likes of DRIVE and DIVER contain four of them.

Whatever the reason, I'm disappointed to have only managed a four myself, despite beating the average. That's because I got off to a really good start, but couldn't capitalize on it.

Yes, after a couple of days on which my opening guess left more than 1,000 possible solutions, yesterday's random start word, SLING, left only 27. The fact that it took three more guesses to solve it from there was pretty annoying.

I didn't do a lot wrong, but my second guess could perhaps have been better. I went with RIGHT, reasoning that I should try to place the yellow G and I. But WordleBot suggested that RATED would have been better.

It was technically correct, in that it would have left only one answer, whereas RIGHT left me with a 50/50. But while I'm not against leaving out yellow letters sometimes, I don't generally do it as early as this. This will have to be one thing the 'Bot and I disagree upon.

Anyway, that left me with a choice between GIVER and DIRGE. Fully aware that we are still well overdue an ER word, I was convinced that the former would be the solution.

Reader, I was wrong. I was left to play DIRGE next time out instead, and had to settle for a frustrating four.

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 #1399, Friday 18 April: DIRGE
Wordle #1398, Thursday 17 April: STOOD
Wordle #1397, Wednesday 16 April: MORAL
Wordle #1396, Tuesday 15 April: ASHEN
Wordle #1395, Monday 14 April: CREST
Wordle #1394, Sunday 13 April: LAUGH
Wordle #1393, Saturday 12 April: NURSE
Wordle #1392, Friday 11 April: ARROW
Wordle #1391, Thursday 10 April: TURBO
Wordle #1390, Wednesday 9 April: WHEAT
Wordle #1389, Tuesday 8 April: SPARE
Wordle #1388, Monday 7 April: HAZEL
Wordle #1387, Sunday 6 April: VILLA
Wordle #1386, Saturday 5 April: FOAMY
Wordle #1385, Friday 4 April: KRILL
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

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.