Wordle Hint Today (Oct 19, 2026) — Staged Hints, No Spoilers

Monday, October 19, 2026 · #1948

Wordle hints for today

Today's hints are staged from vaguest to most specific: the vowel count, whether a letter repeats, three short clues about the word's letters, the first letter, and finally the word in its tiles. Open as many as you need and stop. This half of the page is the standing guide to using Wordle hints without ruining the puzzle — which hint to take at which point in a game, and what each one tells you.

Each hint, and what it is worth in guesses

Wordle's information is in letters, and the hints are ordered by how much of the word they give away. The vowel count removes little on its own but can change an opener — it is the hint to take before guess one if you want a nudge without a spoiler. Two vowels is the common case: 57.9% of the 2,309 original answers in NYT's game code.

The repeated-letter flag is often the most valuable, because 747 of those 2,309 answers repeat a letter and a double is invisible until you test for it. The three numbered clues that follow are generated from the word: one about the last letter (the letter itself, or whether it is a vowel), one about vowels or repeats, and one that gives the first letter. The separate first-letter reveal says the same thing plainly — with the first letter and two greens, the candidate list is usually very short — so treat it as the hint to take only when the alternative is a loss. The tiles are the answer.

A player who has used four guesses well usually needs only the repeated-letter flag and the last-letter clue; the first letter is for guess six, streak on the line.

When to take a hint

Before guess one: the vowel count, if you like to choose an opener to suit the day. After guess three with many candidates: the repeated-letter flag, which will tell you whether to test a double. After guess four with two or three candidates that differ in one letter: the last-letter clue, which often picks between them. After guess five, with one guess left and a genuine choice: the first letter. The Wordle solver gives a different kind of help at the same points — it counts the candidates its dictionary still allows — and the two work together: the solver tells you how many words are left, the hints tell you about the one that matters.

The full answer page has the word with its letter breakdown for a player who is done, and the Wordle guide covers the technique that makes hints unnecessary on most days.

About the hints

The hints are derived from the day's word when HintSheet publishes it at midnight Eastern, by the pipeline on the editorial policy page:

Vowel count, repeated-letter flag and first letter are computed from the word.
The three numbered clues are generated from the word by a script; each states a checkable fact about its letters, and none is written by hand.
Nothing is published early: the days ahead the Times serves are held until their dates.
Wordle changes at your local midnight; this page follows Eastern time, and the date at the top says which word the hints belong to.

Worked: three guesses in, five candidates

Take the answer from 30 September 2026, RIVER. Open with SLATE: only the E lights up, yellow. Follow with CRONY: the R is yellow too. Over the original answer list that leaves 23 words — FIXER, FEWER, RUDER, QUEER, FIBER, RIVER, DIVER, GIVER, WIDER and more. The repeated-letter hint says yes, a letter repeats, which cuts the field to the double-letter words such as FEWER, QUEER and RIVER. The last-letter clue says the word ends in R. One more guess between a handful of words, instead of a blind choice among twenty. That is the case the hints are built for: the middle of a game, where the information is nearly complete and one fact finishes it.

The archive, and what the hints will not do

Every answer HintSheet has published is in the Wordle archive with its letter breakdown — the same facts the first two hints give. Reading a month of them is a way to calibrate. In the 41 answers from 1 September to 11 October 2026, 10 repeated a letter, 13 had a single vowel and one (DRYLY) had none, and 8 started with S, the most of any letter. Those base rates are the reason the repeated-letter hint is the most valuable one: it is the fact you are most likely to have got wrong.

The hints will not tell you tomorrow's word — the Times serves days ahead and this site holds them until their dates — and they will not tell you the answer before the last stage. They also do not change with your time zone: the page follows Eastern time, so a player in California late in the evening may be looking at hints for a word their game has not shown yet, and the date at the top makes that clear.

The hints as a curriculum, and what they diagnose

The order of the hints is also the order in which a player should learn to extract the facts without them. Vowel count is the easiest to infer from an opener: an opener with two vowels that both come back grey tells you the word's vowels are among the other three — or that, like DRYLY, it has none. The repeated-letter question is answered by a second or third guess that tests a found letter in a new position alongside new letters. The last letter is what a guess built around common endings — E, Y, T, R — discovers. A player who takes each hint and then asks "what guess would have told me this?" is using the page as a lesson rather than a crutch.

Reading which hint finally unlocked a game is diagnostic. If the repeated-letter flag did it, your guesses are not testing doubles — try a guess that repeats a found letter when three or more candidates share it. If the last-letter clue did it, you had the candidates and could not choose, which is a probe-word problem in normal mode and bad luck in hard mode. If the first letter did it, your candidate list was probably wrong: a letter was crossed off that should not have been, nearly always a grey tile on a repeated letter that meant "no second copy" rather than "none". The Wordle solver applies that rule exactly and will show you the list you should have had.

A last word on the last stage

The final stage shows the word in its tiles and is there for a player who has lost or given up, not for a player with guesses left. Opening it ends the puzzle as surely as a sixth wrong guess, even though the game will still let you type the word in. The hints above it are designed so that this stage is rarely needed; if you find yourself opening it most days, the Wordle guide is the better page to spend time on, since its second-guess section covers most of the games that reach guess six.

A last practical note: the hints are for the puzzle on the Eastern-time date shown at the top, and because Wordle changes at your local midnight, a player far west of New York may reach this page in the evening while their game still shows the previous word. Check the date — if it is tomorrow's from your point of view, the archive has today's.

Frequently asked questions

Do the hints give away the answer?

Only the last stage shows the word. The earlier stages narrow it without naming it, though the first-letter reveal and the third numbered clue both give the first letter, so treat those as late hints.

Which hint should I take first?

The repeated-letter flag, if you are stuck after three guesses; the vowel count, if you want a nudge before you start. The first letter is a last resort.

Is there a clue to the meaning?

No. Every hint on this page is about letters — vowels, repeats, the last and first letters — generated from the word itself.

What time do the hints change?

HintSheet publishes each date's hints at midnight Eastern. Your game changes at your own local midnight, so check that the date matches.

Can I get hints for yesterday's Wordle?

The archive has yesterday's answer with its letter breakdown; the staged hints are for the current puzzle only.

Do the hints work for hard mode?

Yes — they say nothing about guess order, so they apply in either mode.

Why follow Eastern time?

Every Times game here needs one publishing clock, and the Times' Spelling Bee already runs on Eastern time (3 a.m. ET). The date at the top tells you which puzzle the hints are for.