NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1417, Tuesday, May 6

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May 6, 2025 - 00:25

NYT Wordle today — answer and my hints for game #1417, Tuesday, May 6

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 Monday'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 #1417) - clue #1 - Vowels

How many vowels does today's Wordle have?

• Wordle today has 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).

Wordle hints (game #1417) - clue #2 - first letter

What letter does today's Wordle begin with?

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

Wordle hints (game #1417) - 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 #1417) - clue #4 - ending letter

What letter does today's Wordle end with?

• The last letter in today's Wordle is 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.

Wordle hints (game #1417) - clue #5 - last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here's an extra one for game #1417.

Today's Wordle answer is a group of rooms occupied together.

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 #1417)

NYT Wordle answer for game 1417 on a green background — (Image credit: New York Times)

NYT average score: 4.0
My score: 4
WordleBot's score: 3
My skill score: 97
My luck score: 49
My start word performance: ROAST (40 remaining answers)
WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (128)
Tomorrow's start word: CABIN

Today's Wordle answer (game #1417) is… SUITE.

This may well be one of those opinion-dividing games that arrive every now and then. That's because three of the most popular start words made massive inroads into the potential answers list, with ADIEU leaving only eight possible solutions and both SLATE and STARE cutting the shortlist to four.

Without a good start it may well have been more difficult, because that S---E format has many, many solutions – meaning it may have been tricky work to narrow them down.

In fact, S---E is by a distance the most likely format for the start and end of a word. There are a total of 74 out of the original 2,309 answers that have that structure, more than 30 ahead of the next most frequent format, S---Y.

That's not particularly surprising, given that S is the most common starting letter and E the most likely ending letter, but it does mean you may have struggled to rule out words until late on. That explains why it has an average score of 4.0, despite the good results for those aforementioned ADIEU, SLATE and STARE.

In my case, ROAST gave me a yellow S and T, but still left 40 options. I decided they would probably go together at the start of the word, so left them out of my second guess entirely, and instead played DICEY in order to gain as much information as possible.

WordleBot approved, and it did the job in that it reduced the shortlist to five. I found four of them: SUITE, SPITE, SMITE and STILE, but missed STEIN.

None of my quartet of words would guarantee me a four, but I decided to play one anyway in the hope that I might get a three, and that even if I didn't I would probably still avoid a five.

This was a risk – and could have backfired when SPITE left a 50/50 between SMITE and SUITE. I really, really didn't want to score a five again (I had enough of these last week), but got lucky when I went with SUITE and all five letters turned green.

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

Yesterday's Wordle hints (game #1416)

In a different time zone where it's still Monday? Don't worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1416, too.

Wordle yesterday had a vowel in one place.

* 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 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 H.

H is a regular visitor to the final spot in a Wordle word. It occurs 137 times at the end of a Wordle answer, making it the sixth most common letter there.

Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here's an extra one for game #1416.

Yesterday's Wordle answer is a quietening sound.

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1416)

NYT Wordle answer for game 1416 on a green background — (Image credit: New York Times)

NYT average score: 4.2 (revised)
My score: 3
WordleBot's score: 3
My skill score: 97
My luck score: 63
My start word performance: HASTY (46 remaining answers)
WordleBot's start word performance: CRANE (356)
Tomorrow's start word: ROAST

Yesterday's Wordle answer (game #1416) was… SHUSH.

SHUSH is one of a very, very rare subset of Wordle words that contains two repeated letters – and an even rarer one that has the same starting and ending combination.

There are only 38 solutions among the original list of 2,309 Wordle answers that contain a double repeat, which is a little under 2% of all games. But words that start and end in the same way… well, there are only six of them. And remarkably, we've now had them all.

Weirder still is the fact that the other five all appeared in 200-game run in late 2023 and early 2024: SALSA (game #606), MAGMA (#791), VERVE (#795), ONION (#805) and SENSE (#983).

SHUSH completes the sextet, meaning you won't have to worry about any others turning up; well, unless the NYT adds one later, which is entirely possible.

That said, there is another subset to worry about – which is starting and ending combinations where the ending pair is reversed, for instance CIVIC (game #96). There have been three others of these, MADAM (#387), KAYAK (#671) and REFER (#1126), but I believe there are at least five more still to come.

I suspect that some people will have lost their streak yesterday, given that SHUSH has an average score of 4.3 at the time of writing (note – revised to 4.2). And that's despite RAISE and ARISE, two of the most popular start words, each cutting the number of possible answers to 22.

My start word, chosen randomly, was HASTY; not a bad one, and it performed pretty well too, in cutting the options list to 46.

Better still, my yellow letters were S and H – which together form the second most common starting combo, and 27th most likely at the end.

That made it pretty easy to draw up a list of options, because my brain loves a nice starting or ending combination. None of this hunting around for letters that might go together – simply put S and H at the start, follow with a vowel, then fill the last two – or vice versa.

It's slightly easier to come up with them at the start, so I did that then added the common-everywhere O, R and E to make SHORE. This was not particularly lucky according to WordleBot – luck score 31 – but it still left only three words.

These were SHILL, SHUCK and SHUSH, and it was obvious that I needed to go for one of the latter two. That's because playing SHILL could have left me a 50/50, whereas either of the others would guarantee a four at worst.

I decided that SHUSH was the likeliest to actually be an answer, so went with that and scored a fourth 3/6 in a row. I'm sure my luck will end soon, but for now I'm enjoying it.

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 #1416, Monday 5 May: SHUSH
Wordle #1415, Sunday 4 May: TROUT
Wordle #1414, Saturday 3 May: PATSY
Wordle #1413, Friday 2 May: WHOSE
Wordle #1412, Thursday 1 May: ADEPT
Wordle #1411, Wednesday 30 April: IDLER
Wordle #1410, Tuesday 29 April: BLISS
Wordle #1409, Monday 28 April: DUMMY
Wordle #1408, Sunday 27 April: WEEDY
Wordle #1407, Saturday 26 April: CLASH
Wordle #1406, Friday 25 April: KNOWN
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

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 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.