Today's Wordle hints and answer — solution #1,072, Sunday, May 26 (2024)

Today's Wordle answer is a nasty puzzle. According to the New York Times' WordleBot, the average player completes Wordle #1,072 in 4.7 moves in easy mode or 4.4 if playing by hard rules.

Each day, we will update this article with Wordle hints and tips to help you find today's answer. And if the hints aren't enough, we'll even give you the answer, in case you're really stuck or just haven't had time to complete today's puzzle. Plus, we are also including an analysis of yesterday's puzzle, #1,071, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

So be warned: spoilers lie ahead for game #1,072. Only read on if you want to know today's Wordle answer!

Today's Wordle answer — hints to help you solve it

Our first tip is that you should use one of the best Wordle start words for every game you play. But if you want some more specific clues to today's Wordle answer, then here you go:

• It contains one of the five vowels.*
• There is one repeated letter.
• It features just one of the five most common Wordle letters (but it's used twice).

* By vowel, we mean A, E, I, O, U. There are other letters that are sometimes considered to be vowels, depending on how they are used.

Those hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Wordle answer. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then skip down further for that.

Alright then, here's a larger hint: Today's Wordle answer is a sloping surface.

What does today's Wordle start with?

The answer to Wordle #1,072 starts with B, so combined with the hints above you should now have all the clues you need to get the answer and not break a Wordle streak.

OK, it's now time to scroll down for the answer…

Today's Wordle answer

So, what is today's Wordle answer for game #1,072?

Drumroll, please — it'sBEVEL.

Hello Wordlers. This one had me going for a while — as you can probably tell from my somewhat 'out there' third guess. Still, a double 'E' and 'V' — the fifth-rarest character in the game — was always likely to cause problems.

ORATE — my favourite start word because it contains all five of the most common Wordle letters — wasn't great today. Just the 'E' turned yellow, leaving a massive 190 possible answers still in play.

Most of WordleBot's best Wordle start words weren't that much better, but there were some notable exceptions. DEALT, for example. leaves 27 answers, while LEAPT reduces that to 23. If you played TABLE, only ten possibilities would be left over.

I aim to play a blend of 'I', 'N', 'S', 'C' and 'L' on my second turn, as they're the next-most common letters available.

Today, the best I could do was LENDS. This turned 'E' green, and gave me a yellow 'L' for my trouble. I was down to eight possible answers, according to WordleBot*.

I was really stumped at this point, and faced with a choice between using a double letter (JELLY or BELLY?) and an unlikely one, I chose the latter with HELIX.

It wasn't a great move, with 'L' turning yellow in a whole new position and no new intel to work with, but I was still down to three options.

Eventually I thought of both BEVEL and BEZEL. I decided the former was the more likely, and tried it. Thankfully, all five letters turned green for a four-turn win. Kind of lucky, as it could also have been JEWEL.

Hopefully you did well today, Wordlers. See you tomorrow.

* These were: BELLY, JELLY, CELEB, JEWEL, BEZEL, BEVEL, HELIX and BELCH.

Yesterday's Wordle answer

Reading this in a later time zone? The Wordle answer for game #1,071 was TITAN.

Hello Wordlers. A moderately tricky one today. Although every character in today's answer features among the ten most common Wordle letters, words with a double in are always a bit tougher.

My start word of ORATE revealed two yellow letters right away: 'A' and 'T'. Not a bad start, but the frequency of both meant I hadn't eliminated that many answers, with 60 still in play.

That meant a fair few of WordleBot's best Wordle start words were superior today, including TROPE (37 possible solutions), TABLE (19) and PLANT (15). If you played TRAIN, only the right answer would be left over.

On my second go, I try and play a mix of 'I', 'N', 'S', 'C' and 'L' to weed out other common letters.

Today I saw a great opportunity with SAINT, and it proved to be an excellent answer, whittling down my options to just two. Everything bar 'S' turned yellow, leaving me with an anagram to unpick on my third turn.

I opted for TITAN, which was bold given it involved a double letter - but I figured at the very worst, it would prove where that 'T' belonged. As it turned out, all the letters turned green for a three-turn win.

The other possibility, according to WordleBot? ANTIC.

Hopefully you did well today, Wordlers. See you tomorrow.

Previous Wordle answers

If you're looking for a list of older Wordle answers, we can also help. Here's a list going back 20 games.

• Wordle #1,071: TITAN
• Wordle #1,070: GLIDE
• Wordle #1,069: SWISH
• Wordle #1,068: EXALT
• Wordle #1,067: DINGO
• Wordle #1,066: NICER
• Wordle #1,065: HITCH
• Wordle #1,064: BRINY
• Wordle #1,063: TUTOR
• Wordle #1,062: STALL
• Wordle #1,061: PINCH
• Wordle #1,060: AMASS
• Wordle #1,059: CUMIN
• Wordle #1,058: OUTER
• Wordle #1,057: TIDAL
• Wordle #1,056: MEDIA
• Wordle #1,055: JERKY
• Wordle #1,054: PIOUS
• Wordle #1,053: MUSTY
• Wordle #1,052: SHAVE
• Wordle #1,051: DECAL

Wordle tips — how to win at Wordle

The best tip I can give is to use one of thebest Wordle start words. I can't stress this enough — it makes a massive difference.

Without one, you'll be scrabbling around in the dark trying (and possibly failing) to find the right five letters (or possibly fewer) out of the 26 possibles. But clever people (not me) have done the math and identified the best start words based on both frequency in English and frequency among Wordle answers. So use them!

Secondly, think about combinations, especially at the start and end. Some options are far more common than others — for instance, SH, ST, CR and CH all feature frequently.

Vowels obviously need consideration too: not all Wordle answers will contain more than one, but plenty do, and some even have three. A good Wordle start word should have used a couple, but if they don't feature you might well want to try another one or two on your next go. Plus, remember the Y — this sometimes acts as a surrogate vowel, and is easy to forget. It also appears at the end of plenty of words.

Finally, try out possibilities. So long as you don't press 'Enter' you can try possible answers to see how they look on screen. Put in likely letters plus any you know are definitely in the word, then mentally change one to the other available options. This technique has worked for me multiple times, and it's particularly helpful when the word in question is not an obvious one (like FJORD or ISLET).

But if you're still struggling with Wordle, check out how Tom's Guide's Wordle experts have honed their strategy after playing a lot of Wordle after it first launched.

We also have plenty of Wordle tips and tricks to share, like how we've analyzed every Wordle answer used to look for trends and have some further advice for you there.And if you're new to the game you should also take a look at our What is Wordle? guide.

What else should I know about Wordle?

Wordle officially launched in October 2021, but actually started in June of that year and celebrated its first birthday on June 19, 2022. (You can read my thoughts on the 5 things Wordle needs to improve if it's to keep us playing on into a fourth year.)

However, it only grew in popularity towards the end of the year, then went viral in January as the world woke up to its charms. In fact, it proved so successful that The New York Times bought Wordle for a seven-figure sum in early February and the game is now part of NYT Games.

It's played via the NYT Games website here, and is entirely free. Both the NYT and the game's creator, Josh Wardle, have stated that it will remain free. Some people think that Wordle has got harder since the NYT takeover, but it really hasn't.

Wordle is a simple game in which your challenge is to guess a five-letter word in six attempts. Each time you guess, you're told which of your chosen letters are in the target word, and whether they are in the right place.

If a letter is in the correct place, it turns green. If it's in the word but in the wrong place, it turns yellow. And if it's not in the word at all, it turns gray.

There's just one puzzle a day, and everyone completes the same one. It resets at midnight each day. You'll find more information about the game in our What is Wordle? article.

NYT Strands answer

If you've solved Wordle and need help with other games from the New York Times, we suggest you check out our guide on today's NYT Strands answer, which will give you an overview of how the game works and how to solve the puzzle.

Wordle Alternatives

If you're eager for another game to pass the time while you wait, we've put together a list of the best Wordle alternatives.

Other Wordle alternatives to try are the ultra-stressful (but very good) Squabble and the soccer-themed, Who Are Ya?. We also like the geography-based Wordle clone Worldle, the Star Wars-themed SWordle and the math-based Mathler.

There are certainly plenty of options once you've finished Wordle for the day!