NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1390, Wednesday, April 9

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Apr 9, 2025 - 00:30

NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1390, Wednesday, April 9

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 Tuesday'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 #1390) - 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 #1390) - clue #2 - first letter

What letter does today's Wordle begin with?

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

W is a fairly average letter when it comes to starting an answer. There are 82 solutions that begin with a W, with means that it ranks 13th – so right in the middle of the alphabet.

Wordle hints (game #1390) - 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 #1390) - clue #4 - ending letter

What letter does today's Wordle end with?

• The last letter in today's Wordle is T.

T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.

Wordle hints (game #1390) - clue #5 - last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1390.

Today's Wordle answer is a staple crop.

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 #1390)

NYT Wordle answer for game 1390 on a green background — (Image credit: New York Times)

NYT average score: 3.7
My score: 4
WordleBot's score: 4
My start word performance: BLOOD (1,095 remaining answers)
WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (107)

Today's Wordle answer (game #1390) is… WHEAT.

Combinations are vital to Wordle. Some letters pair far more frequently than others, and it helps to know which they are; it can be the difference between a straightforward three and a disappointing five.

I cover this in my analysis of every Wordle answer, but it only lists the top 30 starting combos by frequency. However, I have a nice big spreadsheet containing the entire list, based on the 2,309 original solutions, and WH sits 46th.

That might not sound that high, but in relative terms it most certainly is; there are 214 distinct starting combinations, so 46th is in the top 25%.

WH appears 18 times across all games – despite the fact that W is not itself all that likely to begin an answer (82 in total, meaning it ranks smack bang in the middle). When paired with an H, W is actually fairly likely to begin a Wordle.

Despite all that, I don't consider WH as often as I should do, and indeed didn't do so today until the fourth guess.

Things had again started poorly for me. My random word generator served up BLOOD, which would have been perfect for one of those OO games I hate so much, but which was very little use at all today and which gave me no yellow or green letters to work with.

Apparently I had 1,095 possible answers at this stage, though obviously I did not count them all. In fact, I didn't come up with any as such – I simply looked at my unplayed letters and went with CATER. That had the benefit of covering the potential ER ending, as well as including the always-common C, A and T.

CATER gave me three yellows and cut the shortlist to 22. At this stage, I did try to come up with my own shortlist, and found 11 words: STAGE, STATE, STAVE, STAKE, HEATH, FEAST, YEAST, MEANT, STEAK, STEAM and MEATY.

Obviously I missed plenty, including the eventual answer, but fortunately that didn't hurt me too much. Based on the words I had found, I played YEAST – and it worked a treat, giving me a green Y at the end and cutting the list to three.

Confusingly, none of these three were on my shortlist, but I found them all after a quick hunt: AGENT, WHEAT and EXPAT.

Playing any of those three would guarantee a solve in five at the worst, but I figured EXPAT was relatively unlikely (is it a proper word or slang?) and decided to go with WHEAT over AGENT for no particular reason. That proved to be the answer, so I ended up with a standard four.

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

Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1389)

In a different time zone where it's still Tuesday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1389, 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 #1389.

Yesterday's Wordle answer is not needed.

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1389)

NYT Wordle answer for game 1389 on a green background — (Image credit: New York Times)

NYT average score: 3.6
My score: 4
WordleBot's score: 4
My start word performance: MUDDY (1,376 remaining answers)
WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (7)

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1389) was… SPARE.

There would be many, many happy Wordlers – because several of the best Wordle start words cut down the options considerably yesterday.

STARE, as you might expect, was one of the best of the top 20, leaving a mere four possible solutions. SANER and SNARE – less widely played but still very good – matched it on four. CRANE, TRACE, CRATE and PLANE all left seven. Best of all, though, was PARSE – which left only one possible answer.

All of which probably explains why SPARE has a very low average score of 3.6, a far cry from the 4.9 for Monday's HAZEL.

I scored a four myself, as did WordleBot – but we had very different experiences. The 'Bot, of course, starts with CRANE – which as I said above, left only seven options: AWARE, BLARE, FLARE, GLARE, SHARE, STARE and SPARE.

The fact that it still needed three more guesses from there shows that while this has a low average, it's not necessarily easy – much will have depended on how the letters fell for you.

In the 'Bot's case, it went with ALOFT next, which then left a 50/50 between SHARE and SPARE. If it used a past Wordle answers list it would have known that SHARE had already appeared (in December), but it doesn't – so it guessed that first, then SPARE fourth.

In my case, I began with MUDDY, which really, really was not helpful. Really, really not. To the extent that it left… 1,376 possible words.

LATER was designed partly to guard against it being an ER word, but though it was a decent guess could only cut that shortlist to 33 – still far more than many players had on their first guess.

I had three yellow letters to play with now, at least, so added an S and N and went with SNARE – and got lucky. This left a three-way between SCARE, SHARE and SPARE, and on this occasion I did look at a previous answers list.

If you want to judge me for that, go ahead. But the way I see it, I could now not fail – I knew that the worst I would score would be a six. I could have guaranteed a five, easily, by playing CHIRP. So morally, all that I was doing here was getting a better score, based on my memory not being able to recall more than 1,000 past solutions. It wouldn't impact my streak – because I could definitely not lose.

You can tell me in the comments whether I was wrong to do that (though I know plenty of others use a list too), but either way I soon established that SCARE had also appeared before, so played SPARE for that 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 #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
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

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.