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NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1403, Tuesday, April 22

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

Apr 22, 2025 - 00:07

NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1403, Tuesday, April 22

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 Monday'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 #1403) - 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 #1403) - clue #2 - first letter

What letter does today's Wordle begin with?

• The first letter in today's Wordle answer is A.

A is a reasonably common starting letter in Wordle: 140 games begin with this letter. It ranks 6th among starting letters, behind S, C, B, T and P.

Wordle hints (game #1403) - 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 #1403) - clue #4 - ending letter

What letter does today's Wordle end with?

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

Y is the second most common ending letter in the game, behind only E. In total, 364 Wordle answers end with a Y.

Wordle hints (game #1403) - clue #5 - last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1403.

Today's Wordle answer is creatively minded.

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 #1403)

NYT Wordle answer for game 1403 on a green background — (Image credit: New York Times)

NYT average score: 3.4
My score: 4
WordleBot's score: 3
My start word performance: CURVY (40 remaining answers)
WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (14)

Today's Wordle answer (game #1403) is… ARTSY.

ARTSY has the lowest average since CREST more than a week ago, a 3.4 rating that marks it out as among the easiest games of the year so far. But I suspect there'll be a fairly big split between the haves and have nots here.

It will hinge, as it so often does, on what your start word was. STARE, still one of the most popular choices, left only two possible solutions – I think the other was ASTIR, but I'm not certain. But better still was ARISE, the choice of 2% of Wordlers today; that left only the single correct answer.

I had rather more than that to work with, although CURVY was not a disastrous opener and gave me a green Y plus yellow R to work with.

That left 40 options – of which I found exactly 12: READY, REEDY, RAINY, ROWDY, RATTY, RALLY, ANGRY, RETRY, HAIRY, FAIRY, LEERY and BEERY. Although as it happens, BEERY was not on WordleBot's shortlist and I do not know why. Surely it's every bit as valid as ARTSY?

Anyway, I'd missed far too many words to have a realistic chance of solving it, and that showed in my second guess, RILED. This would have done a good job of narrowing down the words I had found, but it didn't work so well on the words I hadn't thought of – and left five choices.

As is often the way, though, I had no idea that the real shortlist was still longer than my own one. ANGRY was the only word left on my list – so I played that next, expecting it to solve the puzzle.

Obviously that didn't happen, but fortunately it did rule out the other four words. So when I took another look at the board, ARTSY was the only option I could find, and happily for me it ended up being the solution.

It feels a bit like I solved this one by accident, then – but they all count…

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

Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1402)

In a different time zone where it's still Monday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1402, 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 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 #1402.

Yesterday's Wordle answer is a sudden outpouring.

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1402)

NYT Wordle answer for game 1402 on a green background — (Image credit: New York Times)

NYT average score: 3.9
My score: 3
WordleBot's score: 3
My start word performance: PLAIN (26 remaining answers)
WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (49)

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1402) was… SPATE.

I wrote on Sunday about how -ATCH is one the worst traps in the game, but there are a couple in yesterday's Wordle, too. Remove the P and you have S-ATE for STATE, SLATE and SKATE, remove the T and you get SPARE, SPADE and SPACE. It's nowhere near as bad as -ATCH, but it still may have caught out a few people here.

That said, how bad it was will have depended on your start word. There were some great results for some of the top options: CRATE and CARTE left only nine, LEAST and PLACE were at seven, PARSE at five, SLATE and STARE at three, STALE at two and PLATE left just the single answer.

The only other notable thing about SPATE as an answer is that it's another word that's been added in by the NYT and that wasn't in the original list of 2,309. I have no idea why it wasn't included in the first place, but I suspect plenty of people will be pleased to see it here – well, if you began with SLATE or STARE at least.

My own game was pretty uneventful. My random starter was PLAIN, which left 26 possibles, and I got lucky with my second guess, CREST. This gave me three yellow letters to add to the yellow P and green A that I'd omitted from my attempt, and cut my shortlist to a single option.

That was SPATE, which I played next for my third successive three – a real rarity that I haven't enjoyed since late February.

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 #1402, Monday 21 April: SPATE
Wordle #1401, Sunday 20 April: PATCH
Wordle #1400, Saturday 19 April: INBOX
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

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.