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 #1516) – 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 #1516) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is K.
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 #1516) – 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 #1516) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is 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.
Wordle hints (game #1516) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1516.
- Today’s Wordle answer is a fermented food.
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 #1516)
- NYT average score: 4.4
- My score: 2
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- My skill score: 77
- My luck score: 93
- My start word performance: RACER (6 remaining answers)
- WordleBot’s start word performance: SLATE (329)
- Tomorrow’s start word: COBRA
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1516) is… KEFIR.
The jury is still out on whether KEFIR provides a real health benefit, to the extent that the website Verywell Health reported in May this year that “it may improve gut health” and in June that it “makes no difference for your gut health”, but I like it nonetheless and have a pot of kefir yoghurt every day with my breakfast.
What is undeniable about it is that it makes for a tricky Wordle word, with an average score of 4.4 according to WordleBot. That makes it the toughest game since DAUNT nearly two weeks ago and ends a pretty easy run so far in August, certainly compared to what we saw in July.
Its difficulty may stem partly from its relative obscurity as a word; I feel like it’s only in the past few years that it’s become a big health thing in the US and UK at least, and it may be that some people are just not that aware of it.
A bigger problem may be the structure of the word, because there are no other answers among Wordle’s 2,309-strong original list that have the format KEF at the start.
Actually, correction – there are no answers at all that have that format in the list, because this one was not on Josh Wardle’s list. Instead, it’s another NYT addition, and these almost always skew towards the difficult end of the spectrum.
Nor is the ending of the word much more common; there are only seven original answers that end in an IR, of which we’ve had five so far: TAPIR (game #193), THEIR (#275), STAIR (#294), FLAIR (#303) and CHOIR (#798). I’m pretty sure I know what one of the remaining two is, but I can’t for the life of me think of the other. By all means have a guess in the comments.
While it is a difficult word in general, it was not a tough game for me – because I really lucked out twice.
Firstly, my random word generator told me to play RACER – which I was pretty happy about, despite that repeated letter, because it enabled me to play A, E, C and R, and to rule out (or in) an ER word right away.
I was surprised when the R turned green but the E went yellow, and on investigation realized that there were now not many words left. In fact, there were only six, but I only found four of them: THEIR, DEMUR, LEMUR and KEFIR. Inexplicably I missed FEMUR – despite it having the same format as two words on my shortlist – and also TENOR.
Now, I was pretty certain that THEIR and LEMUR had both been past Wordle answers, and was correct; I mentioned THEIR above, while LEMUR was the answer to game #1291 in December.
In my head, that therefore left me a 50/50 of DEMUR and KEFIR and I decided to go with the latter because I’d just eaten a pot of it and it was fresh in my mind.
With hindsight, this might have backfired – because if it was wrong, I might still have had three words left and could even have ended up with a five (though a three or four would have been much more likely). But I didn’t know that at the time, so played KEFIR in blissful ignorance and instead scored my second two of the month.
Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1515)
In a different time zone where it’s still Tuesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1515, 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 N.
N is a surprisingly uncommon starting letter. Only 37 games begin with it and it ranks just 18th in this regard.
- 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 D.
D is a fairly common letter to end a Wordle answer: it’s the eighth most likely to be in that position in a solution.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1515.
- Yesterday’s Wordle answer moves around a lot.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1515)
- NYT average score: 3.8
- My score: 3
- WordleBot’s score: 3
- My skill score: 92
- My luck score: 76
- My start word performance: WIDOW (114 remaining answers)
- WordleBot’s start word performance: SLATE (202)
- Tomorrow’s start word: RACER
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1515) was… NOMAD.
As start words go, there can’t be too many with less potential than WIDOW. After all, W is not exactly a common letter in Wordle (it ranks 21st out of 26), so how likely was it that two Ws would be helpful? Not high!
Still, the other three letters were all pretty common, and as it happened I needn’t have worried, because WIDOW was not a complete disaster. With the D and O both turning yellow, my shortlist was cut to 114 words – which turned out to be a much better return than I had with the theoretically superior DRAPE yesterday. There’s no predicting this game…
Some were much luckier still, though – with the AUDIO crowd particularly fortunate. That word, which is always the second most popular opener after ADIEU, left only eight options and therefore a strong chance of a three for its many acolytes.
Without that kind of opening a four will have been more likely, but I doubt too many will have ended up with five or lower, because NOMAD is not too tough.
It has an average of 3.8 at the time of writing, and is formed from two very common vowels and one very common consonant. The other two – M and D – are more middling, but D is always a likely option at the end of a word, which will have made it more likely that people thought to play it at some point.
With WIDOW leaving 100-plus options I again needed a good second guess, and today I realized that there was a nasty letter trap potentially lying in wait; my shortlist included MOUND, FOUND, ROUND, BOUND, POUND and SOUND.
I also had BOARD and HOARD, plus the likes of CLOUD, COULD and MOULD, so playing the O in the second slot next to a U seemed like a good idea. M featured in a few of my words – I also had MOLDY and MOODY – and I knew I wanted the D at the end, so I decided to go with MOULD.
For the second day in a row, I got really lucky: MOULD cut those 114 choices down to only one, NOMAD.
Or at least that’s what I thought. WordleBot, however, reckons there were really three options, with the others being HOMED and DOMED. I’m not sure how likely either of those are, because Wordle doesn’t generally do ED words, and I don’t think I’d have played them anyway.
As it was, I didn’t even think of them, so instead I went with NOMAD for another nice three.
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 #1515, Tuesday 12 August: NOMAD
- Wordle #1514, Monday 11 August: SOUTH
- Wordle #1513, Sunday 10 August: MINTY
- Wordle #1512, Saturday 9 August: NASAL
- Wordle #1511, Friday 8 August: IMBUE
- Wordle #1510, Thursday 7 August: CORAL
- Wordle #1509, Wednesday 6 August: GROAN
- Wordle #1508, Tuesday 5 August: STORK
- Wordle #1507, Monday 4 August: RIGID
- Wordle #1506, Sunday 3 August: LUMPY
- Wordle #1505, Saturday 2 August: DAUNT
- Wordle #1504, Friday 1 August: BANJO
- Wordle #1503, Thursday 31 July: FRILL
- Wordle #1502, Wednesday 30 July: ASSAY
- Wordle #1501, Tuesday 29 July: OMEGA
- Wordle #1500, Monday 28 July: SAVVY
- Wordle #1499, Sunday 27 July: WHOLE
- Wordle #1498, Saturday 26 July: HAUNT
- Wordle #1497, Friday 25 July: GOFER
- Wordle #1496, Thursday 24 July: QUAKE
- Wordle #1495, Wednesday 23 July: WATER
- Wordle #1494, Tuesday 22 July: BURNT
- Wordle #1493, Monday 21 July: TIZZY
- Wordle #1492, Sunday 20 July: BLANK
- Wordle #1491, Saturday 19 July: SWORD
- Wordle #1490, Friday 18 July: LORIS
- Wordle #1489, Thursday 17 July: MODAL
- Wordle #1488, Wednesday 16 July: NERVY
- Wordle #1487, Tuesday 15 July: FOIST
- Wordle #1486, Monday 14 July: UNDID
- Wordle #1485, Sunday 13 July: GNOME
- Wordle #1484, Saturday 12 July: EXILE
- Wordle #1483, Friday 11 July: BRAND
- Wordle #1482, Thursday 10 July: JUMPY
- Wordle #1481, Wednesday 9 July: NOVEL
- Wordle #1480, Tuesday 8 July: DREAD
- Wordle #1479, Monday 7 July: STILT
- Wordle #1478, Sunday 6 July: ATRIA
- Wordle #1477, Saturday 5 July: BALER
- Wordle #1476, Friday 4 July: CURVE
- Wordle #1475, Thursday 3 July: POPPY
- Wordle #1474, Wednesday 2 July: INCUR
- Wordle #1473, Tuesday 1 July: MOLDY
- Wordle #1472, Monday 30 June: BLINK
- Wordle #1471, Sunday 29 June: WITTY
- Wordle #1470, Saturday 28 June: STUMP
- Wordle #1469, Friday 27 June: PLAIN
- Wordle #1468, Thursday 26 June: OFFER
- Wordle #1467, Wednesday 25 June: COMFY
- Wordle #1466, Tuesday 24 June: ELITE
- Wordle #1465, Monday 23 June: ODDLY
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 in 2022 and is still going strong in 2025.
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’ Games 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.
12. The NYT has added in some of its own words, that weren’t in that list of 2,309 solutions. More will undoubtedly come over the next few years.