NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1406, Friday, April 25

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 #1406) - 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 #1406) - 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 #1406) - 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 #1406) - clue #4 - ending letter

N is a pretty common ending letter in Wordle: it's the seventh most likely in that position and features in 130 solutions.

Wordle hints (game #1406) - clue #5 - last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1406.

• Today's Wordle answer is generally recognized.

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 #1406)

• NYT average score: 4.2
• My score: 3
• WordleBot's score: 4
• My start word performance: TORUS (152 remaining answers)
• WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (81)

Today's Wordle answer (game #1406) is… KNOWN.

Oh silent K, how you confuse poor, unsuspecting Wordlers.

There are 10 of these among the 2,309 original solutions in the game, and KNOWN is the eighth; previously we've had KNOLL (which appeared before WordleBot existed, so I don't have an average score), KNOCK (3.6), KNEEL (4.3), KNELT (4.0), KNEAD (4.0), KNAVE (4.1), KNACK (4.0).

KNOCK is the outlier there; I don't know why people found that easier, but that one aside, they have all been 4.0 or above. Today's KNOWN continues that trend, coming in at a tricky 4.2 at the time of writing.

To complicate matters, it also has a repeated N – so there's no shame if it took you five or six guesses to solve it. (Not that there should ever be shame for needing extra guesses to solve Wordle, of course, but you know what I mean).

Amazingly, I scored a three and beat WordleBot despite a pretty poor first guess. However, that was almost entirely due to luck.

My opener was TORUS, a lovely word, but not particularly helpful today. It gave me a yellow O, but nothing more and left 152 possible solutions.

I never expected to turn that result into a three, but the Wordle gods had other ideas for me. I played CLONE as a good narrowing down word, nothing more, and it turned the O green and gave me a yellow N to go with it.

Initially, I thought there would still be a handful of answers left, or maybe even as many as a dozen – but despite spending ages looking, I could only see KNOWN.

I played it more in hope than expectation, but all five letters turned green, and when I consulted WordleBot later it confirmed that KNOWN had been the only solution left to me – meaning I'd gone from 152 to 1 in one guess. Nice!

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

Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1405)

In a different time zone where it's still Thursday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1405, too.

• Wordle yesterday had vowels in three 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 G.

G is the eighth most common starting letter, featuring in 115 Wordle answers. It's often paired with an R to make GR--- or an L to make GL---, but I'm not revealing whether that's the case today.

• There were 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 #1405.

• Yesterday's Wordle answer is a magic spirit.

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1405)

• NYT average score: 4.1
• My score: 4
• WordleBot's score: 3
• My start word performance: CHIDE (33 remaining answers)
• WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (24)

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1405) was… GENIE.

This was another fairly tricky Wordle – although it's definitely not as difficult as Wednesday's OZONE.

GENIE had an average score of 4.1 at the time of writing, but it was very early in the day in the UK.

It contains a repeated letter, which usually makes a game harder by default. Yes, that repeated letter is E – the most likely to appear more than once – but it's still less likely than it appearing a single time.

It also has relatively uncommon pairings at the start and end of the word. The GE at the beginning is only found in five out of the original 2,309 solutions, and is a lot less likely than GL or GR.

You might think the IE at the end is more common, meanwhile, but though it's a common pairing elsewhere in a word, it doesn't turn up often at the end – only seven answers have this format.

Put all that together and you have a harder-than-average game that I was content to score a four on.

My start word fared far better yesterday than Wednesday, with CHIDE giving me a yellow I and green E, and leaving only 33 options. However, my second guess SMART was, er, not so smart and didn't uncover any extra letters.

Still, my shortlist now had only nine words on it – well, according to WordleBot. My own list had just four: INANE, BELIE, PIXIE and BIBLE. Somehow I missed BINGE, PIQUE, BILGE, LIEGE and GENIE itself, plus BOGIE (which seems a lot less likely).

I played BELIE next, and got lucky. Despite not knowing that all of these other words were possibilities, I accidentally ruled them all out anyway, and was able to play GENIE next for an acceptable 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 #1405, Thursday 24 April: GENIE
• Wordle #1404, Wednesday 23 April: OZONE
• Wordle #1403, Tuesday 22 April: ARTSY
• 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

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.