If you’ve been playing Wordle for any stretch of time, you already know that a great opener can mean the difference between cruising to a win and burning through guesses in frustration. This guide pulls together today’s answer, the most effective strategies backed by data from WordleBot and player statistics, and where to find every other NYT game worth your time.

Publisher: New York Times ·
Daily Puzzle: Yes ·
Current Game: #1778 ·
Today’s Answer: BRING ·
App: NYT Games: Wordle & Crossword

The table below consolidates the key platform details, statistical benchmarks, and strategic references used throughout this guide.

New York Times Wordle Today

Today’s Wordle Hints for March 14, 2026 – The New York Times

The New York Times runs Wordle through its dedicated games platform, releasing one puzzle per day at midnight Eastern Time. For those who want a nudge without spoiling the answer entirely, NYT Spotlight provides subtle hints that guide players without handing over the solution. Game #1778 was BRING (May 2, 2026), giving today’s players a fresh challenge to work through. The game lives at NYT’s official Wordle page and through the NYT Games app, which also houses Connections, Strands, and other puzzles.

Hints without spoilers

If you’re stuck and want help without a full reveal, several sources offer spoiler-protected hints. Word Tips and TechRadar both publish daily hint columns that give you the number of vowels in today’s answer, common starting letters, and whether the answer contains any repeated letters. These hints come from analyzing the same word lists that WordleBot uses internally to rank starting word efficiency. E is by far the most common ending letter in Wordle answers, so if your guesses end in E and come back yellow or green, you’re likely on the right track.

Starting letter

S is the most common starting letter in Wordle, followed closely by C, according to letter frequency analysis from TechRadar. Starting with a word that opens with one of these letters and includes two vowels puts you in strong statistical position. The New York Times selects answers with care, avoiding words with rare letters or repeated characters, which means your best starting words should follow that same logic.

Puzzle number

Wordle game numbering runs continuously—game #1778 on May 2, 2026 means the puzzle has been running for nearly five years since the original launch. Each game is numbered sequentially, so tracking your personal streak against the game number gives you a sense of how you compare to the broader player base. The NYT average score of 3.7 for game #1767 suggests that players using data-backed starting strategies perform notably better than the median.

What are the best 5 starting words for Wordle?

When data analysts and Wordle enthusiasts crunch the numbers on millions of games, certain starting words consistently outperform the rest. The ten most common letters in Wordle answers are E, A, R, O, T, S, L, I, N, and C, which means a strong opener should hit at least four of these to maximize useful feedback. Words like CANOE, SLATE, and CRANE check every box: they use high-frequency letters, maintain a two-vowel balance, and avoid repeated characters that would waste a diagnostic slot.

Data-backed starters

Wordle Hints Today analyzed letter frequency across the full answer list using information theory principles, which measures how much information each guess eliminates from the remaining possibilities. CANOE ranks as the statistically optimal starting word, according to Word Finder (Your Dictionary), because it covers five high-frequency letters while maintaining the ideal vowel-to-consonant ratio. SLATE, CRANE, SALET, CARTE, SLANT, and STALE all appear in the top-tier rankings because they end with E—the most common ending letter—while opening with strong starting letters.

Vocabulary.com picks

Vocabulary.com curates lists of recommended starting words, with ADIEU and ODIUM standing out for players who want maximum vowel coverage early. ADIEU is memorable and hits four vowels at once, but information theory shows that covering all five vowels in one guess can actually reduce your diagnostic efficiency—you want consonant feedback too. ODIUM works similarly but with a harder letter pattern that sometimes confuses players. For most people, a balanced two-vowel opener like SLATE or CRANE strikes the better balance.

What is the best 2nd word in Wordle?

Your second guess depends entirely on what the first one taught you, but the math gets interesting when you look at how many answers remain after different openings. SLATE, according to WordleBot, leaves only 50 remaining possible answers to consider. SANER, by contrast, leaves 304 possible answers still in play. That gap is enormous when you consider that each guess should be eliminating as many options as possible. After your opener, check which letters came back yellow or green, then look for a word that covers new high-frequency letters without repeating green-confirmed positions.

Follow-up guesses

Word Finder (Your Dictionary) identifies ROATE, CRANE, RAISE, and TRACE as top contenders for second-word status when paired with a consonant-heavy first guess. The logic is simple: if your first word revealed greens or yellows in certain positions, your second word should probe entirely new letter territory while respecting what you already know. Players should avoid fixating on one possibility and instead experiment with various letter combinations using all six guesses.

Excel analysis

Some Wordle analysts have built Excel models tracking letter frequency changes after each round of feedback. The methodology involves marking every position with its confirmed state (green, yellow, gray), then filtering the answer list for words matching those constraints. This process is tedious to do manually, which is why WordleBot and Startle tools automate much of it. Observing word patterns and letter combinations helps identify correct placements in Wordle, and these tools accelerate that pattern recognition by highlighting which remaining guesses offer the best expected information gain.

What is the number one starter word in Wordle?

The crown for statistically best Wordle starting word goes to CANOE, according to comprehensive analysis from Word Finder (Your Dictionary). Information theory principles applied to the full Wordle answer list show that CANOE eliminates the largest percentage of possible answers on the first guess. It hits all five high-frequency consonants and vowels while maintaining a pattern that rarely traps players in dead ends. SLATE and CRANE are the runners-up, and they’re often recommended instead because their E-ending pattern is more intuitive for casual players.

Top data analytics choice

WordleBot, the official NYT tool for analyzing Wordle efficiency, rates starting words on how many possibilities they eliminate and how evenly they distribute across the letter-frequency landscape. CANOE ranks highest because it probes five distinct high-frequency letters simultaneously. The New York Times selects Wordle answers with discernment, avoiding words with rare letters or repeated characters—which means the answer pool itself is structured to reward exactly the kind of balanced, high-frequency approach that CANOE embodies.

Other NYT Games Today

The New York Times has built an impressive puzzle ecosystem beyond Wordle, and the games reinforce each other through shared infrastructure. The NYT Games app (available on iOS and Android) gives you one hub for Wordle, Connections, Strands, and the crossword, plus social features that let you track friends’ scores across every puzzle. The NYT Games platform continues expanding, with new titles added periodically that fit the same elegant, short-session format that made Wordle a phenomenon.

Quordle today

Quordle challenges you to solve four Wordles simultaneously with only nine guesses total, which is considerably harder than the standard single-puzzle experience. It’s not an official NYT product, but it captures the same core mechanics in a format that rewards the strategic approach developed through regular Wordle play. Many Wordle veterans find that Quordle sharpens their letter-elimination thinking in ways that improve their standard-game performance.

Connections today

Connections is a NYT original that asks you to group 16 words into four categories of four, with one category always being a deliberate trap. The game runs daily alongside Wordle and shares the same sharing mechanic—players post their results in colored grid format. Connections rewards a different skill set than Wordle (semantic clustering rather than letter elimination), but the two puzzles complement each other well for players who want daily variety.

Strands today

Strands is the newest NYT puzzle, launching in 2024, and it combines crossword-style grid mechanics with word-search elements. Like Connections, it publishes daily and has quickly built a dedicated following. Strands uses themed puzzles where you must find all words related to a given topic, with the “spangram” (a word that spans the grid) serving as the meta clue. The game has a gentler difficulty curve than Wordle, making it accessible for players who want a lighter daily commitment.

How to play New York Times Wordle

Wordle’s rules are elegantly simple: you have six guesses to identify a secret five-letter word, with each guess providing color-coded feedback. Green means the letter is correct and in the right position. Yellow means the letter is in the word but in the wrong spot. Gray means the letter doesn’t appear in the answer at all. After each guess, the game marks your tiles, and you use that feedback to narrow down possibilities for your next attempt.

Basic rules

The game accepts only valid five-letter words as guesses—you’ll get an error if you type something outside the word list. The NYT Wordle word list contains around 2,300 approved answers, plus a much larger list of accepted guesses. Common starting letters for Wordle include T, O, A, and D, while common ending letters include E, S, T, and D, according to Word Tips analysis. This means a strong opener should ideally include at least two of these high-frequency letters to maximize the feedback you receive.

Sharing results

After completing a puzzle, Wordle generates a shareable results grid that you can copy and paste into social media, messaging apps, or group chats. The grid shows only your colored tiles and the number of guesses it took—no letters, no answer—making it safe to share publicly. This sharing mechanic was a major driver of Wordle’s viral growth and remains one of the most satisfying parts of the daily ritual. Download the NYT Games app to add friends and follow daily scores directly within the platform.

Related reading: Spelling Bee Game Online Free · Prime Numbers 1 to 100: Full List and How to Identify

Strategies like starting with CRANE or SLATE gain extra edge from the Wordle New York Times today guide, which details hints for the latest puzzle alongside leaderboard tips.

Frequently asked questions

The New York Times selects its Wordle answers with discernment. Avoid words with rare letters or repeated characters.

— Word Finder (Your Dictionary) (Word Finder analysis)

Words with repeated letters, like SPEED or LEVEL, waste a diagnostic slot by testing the same letter twice. On guess one, you want every position pulling its weight.

— Wordle Hints Today (Wordle strategy analysis)

A strong opener includes at least four of the ten most common letters, because every one of those letters appears in such a large portion of the answer list that the feedback you get is almost guaranteed to be useful.

— Wordle Hints Today (Letter frequency guide)

For casual players who just want to enjoy the daily ritual, the takeaway is straightforward: use a data-backed starter like SLATE or CRANE, respect the color-coded feedback on every guess, and resist the urge to repeat letters that have already come back gray. For competitive players chasing below-average scores, CANOE remains the statistically optimal opener, and tracking your remaining answer pool with WordleBot will shave your average down noticeably. The New York Times has built a puzzle that rewards both casual play and strategic thinking—and today’s game #1778 (BRING) is waiting whenever you’re ready.