Clues and answer for Thursday, December 18

Hey, there! We hope you’ve had a wonderful week so far. The weekend is approaching, so let’s make sure you get there with your Wordle streak intact. Here’s our daily Wordle guide with some hints and the answer for Thursday’s puzzle (#1,643).

It may be that you’re a Wordle newcomer and you’re not completely sure how to play the game. We’re here to help with that as well.

What is Wordle?

Wordle is a deceptively simple daily word game that debuted in 2021. There is one five-letter word to deduce every day by process of elimination. The daily word is the same for everyone.

Wordle blew up in popularity in late 2021 after creator Josh Wardle made it easy for players to share an emoji-based grid with their friends and followers that shows how they fare each day in a spoiler-free way. The game’s success spurred dozens of clones across a swathe of categories and formats.

The New York Times purchased Wordle in early 2022 for an undisclosed sum. The publication said that players collectively played Wordle 5.3 billion times in 2024. So, it’s little surprise that Wordle is one of the best online games and puzzles you can play daily.

How to play Wordle

To start playing Wordleyou simply need to enter one five-letter word. The game will tell you how close you are to that day’s secret word by highlighting letters that are in the correct position in green. Letters that appear in the word but aren’t in the right spot will be highlighted in yellow. If you guess any letters that are not in the secret word, the game will gray those out on the virtual keyboard. However, you can still use those letters in subsequent guesses.

You’ll only have six guesses to find each day’s word, though you still can use grayed-out letters to help narrow things down. It’s also worth remembering that letters can appear in the secret word more than once.

Wordle is free to play on the NOW's website and apps, as well as on Meta Quest headsets and Discord. The game refreshes at midnight local time. If you log into a New York Times account, you can track your statsincluding the all-important win streak.

How to play Wordle more than once a day

If you have a NOW subscription that includes full access to the publication’s games, you don’t have to stop after a single round of Wordle. You’ll have access to an archive of more than 1,600 previous Wordle games. So if you’re a relative newcomer, you’ll be able to go back and catch up on previous editions.

In addition, paid NOW Games members have access to a tool called the Wordle Bot. This can tell you how well you performed at each day’s game.

Previous Wordle answers

Before today’s Wordle hints, here are the answers to recent puzzles that you may have missed:

Yesterday’s Wordle answer for Wednesday, December 17 — GRASS

Tuesday, December 16 — SEGUE

Monday, December 15 — DODGY

Sunday, December 14 — SWING

Saturday, December 13 — MISER

Today’s Wordle hints explained

Every day, we’ll try to make Wordle a little easier for you. First, we’ll offer a hint that describes the meaning of the word or how it might be used in a phrase or sentence. We’ll also tell you if there are any double (or even triple) letters in the word.

In case you still haven’t quite figured it out by that point, we’ll then provide the first letter of the word. Those who are still stumped after that can continue on to find out the answer for today’s Wordle.

This should go without saying, but make sure to scroll slowly. Spoilers are ahead.

Today’s Wordle help

Here is a hint for today’s Wordle answer:

A team sport that has two codes and is played with an oval ball.

Are there any double letters in today’s Wordle?

There are no repeated letters in today’s Wordle answer.

What’s the first letter of today’s Wordle?

The first letter of today’s Wordle answer is R.

The Wordle answer today

This is your final warning before we reveal today’s Wordle answer. No take-backs.

Don’t blame us if you happen to scroll too far and accidentally spoil the game for yourself.

What is today’s Wordle? Today’s Wordle answer is…

RUGBY

Not to worry if you didn’t figure out today’s Wordle word. If you made it this far down the page, hopefully you at least kept your streak going. And, hey: there’s always another game tomorrow.