Wordle puzzle
Wordle puzzle

NEW YORK — After a week of unusual words such as DRECK and PRATE, The New York Times' Wordle offers a break on Sunday. Puzzle No. 1968 uses a word nearly every player knows, though its single vowel and cluster of consonants can still cost a guess or two.

Players get six attempts to find a hidden five-letter word, and the puzzle resets at midnight local time. Wordle No. 1968 is the puzzle for Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026.

If you want to solve it yourself, stop here. The hints come first and the full answer is further down.

Hints for Wordle No. 1968

These clues go from gentlest to most revealing.

The first hint is the type of word. Today's answer is an adjective.

The second hint covers the letters. The word contains one traditional vowel, and there are no duplicate letters. That vowel is one of the five standard vowels, A, E, I, O or U, not Y.

The third hint gives the edges. Today's Wordle starts with the letter F, and the last letter is T.

The final hint is a definition. The word means being number one in a series or coming earliest in time and space.

Strategy tips

Sunday's answer rewards consonant-heavy guessing. Because the word has only one vowel, openers packed with vowels such as ADIEU give limited information once the vowel is found.

The ending is the key pattern. Words ending in "-ST" are common in Wordle, so players who confirm S and T near the end can test options such as WORST, BURST, HEIST and FEAST. Finding the opening letter then becomes the main challenge.

The letters themselves are very common. R, S and T are among the most frequent letters in English, so popular starters like SLATE, CRANE or TRACE should reveal at least two letters on the first guess.

A useful tactic once a few letters are confirmed is to play a "burner" word that tests several possible first letters at once, rather than guessing candidate answers one by one.

Today's Wordle answer

Spoiler warning: the solution follows.

The answer for Wordle 1968 is FIRST.

FIRST is most often used as an adjective meaning earliest in order or rank, as in "first place" or "the first day." It can also act as an adverb ("She arrived first") or a noun ("a historic first").

Recent Wordle answers

Sunday's word ends a week of tougher vocabulary. Recent answers were PRATE on Nov. 7, DRECK on Nov. 6, PARCH on Nov. 5 and NUTTY on Nov. 4.

FIRST also continues the week's single-vowel run, after DRECK, PARCH and NUTTY.

How Wordle works

Players get six tries to guess a hidden five-letter word. After each guess, the tiles change color: green means the letter is correct and in the right spot, yellow means the letter is in the word but in the wrong position, and gray means it is not in the word.

A new puzzle comes out at midnight in each player's time zone. The game is available on The New York Times Games website and in the NYT Games app.

Wordle No. 1969 arrives Monday.