NEW YORK — The New York Times’ Wordle served up a deceptively simple food word on Wednesday, but its repeated letter and single vowel made puzzle No. 1964 trickier than it first appeared for many players trying to protect their streaks.
The daily word game, which gives players six attempts to identify a hidden five-letter word, refreshes at midnight local time. Wordle No. 1964 is the puzzle for Nov. 4, 2026.
Readers who want to solve the puzzle on their own should stop here. Hints come first, followed by the full answer further below.
How hard is today’s puzzle?
Wednesday’s word sits on the tougher side of average. Insider Gaming described the puzzle as somewhat challenging, citing the New York Times’ Wordle review, which put the average solve at 4.3 guesses out of six.
The difficulty comes less from obscurity than from structure. Words with doubled letters often cost players extra turns, because the game’s color tiles do not immediately signal that a letter appears twice.
Hints for Wordle No. 1964
For players who want a nudge without the full solution, here are several clues, arranged from gentlest to most revealing.
The first hint concerns the type of word. Today’s answer is an adjective commonly used to describe food.
The second hint is about its letters. The word contains only one vowel, counting only A, E, I, O and U, and at least one letter appears more than once.
The third hint points to where the word might appear. It often shows up in descriptions of cookies or snack bars.
A broader clue comes from a second meaning. The word can also describe a person who behaves in an unusual or eccentric way.
The fourth hint gives away the opening letter. The word begins with the letter N.
The final hint is a plain definition: the word means containing nuts.
Strategy tips
Players who used popular opening words got off to very different starts on Wednesday. According to Nerds Chalk, an opening guess of SLATE left 39 possible words from its list of 2,390 common five-letter words, CRANE left 56, and ADIEU left 181.
That gap highlights a broader lesson for this puzzle. Vowel-heavy starters such as ADIEU are less useful on days when the answer contains only one vowel, because they burn letters that are not in play. Consonant-rich openers such as SLATE or CRANE tend to narrow the field faster in those cases.
Players who identify a T early should consider whether it might appear twice. Many common words that end in a doubled consonant followed by Y follow a similar pattern, and testing that possibility early can save a turn.
It also helps to think about word families. Common five-letter words ending in TTY include PETTY, KITTY, FATTY, PATTY, WITTY, PUTTY, BATTY, DITTY and CATTY. Players who land on the ending but not the opening letters can use that list to rule out options quickly.
Today’s Wordle answer
Spoiler warning: the solution follows.
The answer to Wordle No. 1964 on Nov. 4, 2026, is NUTTY.
NUTTY is an adjective meaning containing nuts, as in a nutty granola bar packed for a snack. In everyday speech, it is also used informally to describe someone or something that seems eccentric or a little odd.
The opening letter is relatively uncommon in the game’s history. Only 34 of the 1,964 Wordle answers to date have started with the letter N.
Recent Wordle answers
Players who missed earlier puzzles or want to avoid repeating guesses can review the past week’s solutions. Recent answers were POUCH on Nov. 3, SCOOT on Nov. 2, VIPER on Nov. 1, YAHOO on Oct. 31, SLIDE on Oct. 30, MOTOR on Oct. 29 and GRIST on Oct. 28.
Wednesday’s answer continues a recent run of words built around doubled letters. SCOOT and YAHOO both featured repeated vowels, while NUTTY repeats a consonant.
Bonus puzzle: Wordle in 1
The New York Times also offers a newer bonus format for players who want an extra challenge. Wordle in 1 is a variation in which every word has exactly one possible solution, and each round gives players a single clue pointing to only one word.
The answers for Wordle in 1 No. 11, published on Nov. 4, 2026, are BRAVE, FEIGN, UPSET, SOLID and LOFTY.
How Wordle works
Wordle gives players six tries to guess a hidden five-letter word. After each guess, tiles change color to show progress: 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 the letter does not appear at all.
A new puzzle arrives at midnight in each player’s own time zone, and the game can be played on The New York Times Games website or in the NYT Games app.
Created by software engineer Josh Wardle and acquired by The New York Times in 2022, the game remains one of the most popular daily word puzzles online, with millions of players sharing their colored grids on social media each day.
A new Wordle puzzle, No. 1965, will be available Thursday.
