Wordle players hunting for Tuesday’s answer can find it here: the solution to puzzle #1851, released July 14, 2026, is STEAK, according to multiple outlets tracking the daily New York Times word game.
The five-letter word refers to a high-quality, thick slice of meat or fish, typically cut across the muscle grain and prepared by grilling or frying, something a diner might order medium-rare at a restaurant. Puzzle trackers described Tuesday’s word as carrying a moderate difficulty rating overall, but flagged one particularly sharp trap embedded in the puzzle: STEAK shares the exact same five letters as STAKE, its perfect anagram, with only the positions of the K and A swapped between the two words.
According to puzzle guide EasternHerald, that overlap proved genuinely tricky for solvers who narrowed down the correct letter set early in their guessing but then locked in the wrong arrangement of those letters. “Solvers who narrow down the letter set early and land on STAKE first may find themselves using a precious extra guess before the correct arrangement clicks,” the guide noted. The same source pointed out that the word’s ending also opens onto a cluster of similarly structured words, including SNEAK, SPEAK, FREAK and CREAK, all of which share the same final four-letter combination and could further slow down a player’s endgame if their earlier guesses hadn’t already ruled out enough letters.
For those working through the puzzle before checking the solution, several structural clues were available. The word contains no repeated letters, begins with the two-letter combination ST and ends in EAK, distinguishing it from words like STOUT, Monday’s answer, which shared the same opening two letters. One puzzle tracker noted that Tuesday’s word marked the second consecutive day featuring an ST- opening, calling it “a coincidence worth noting” while clarifying that Wordle’s word list is not designed to intentionally cluster answers by shared starting letters.
Wordle challenges players to guess a hidden five-letter word within six attempts, using color-coded tile feedback to indicate whether each guessed letter is correct and correctly placed, correct but misplaced, or absent from the word entirely. The game, created by software engineer Josh Wardle in 2021, was acquired by The New York Times the following year after surging in popularity, and has since become a fixture of the paper’s daily games lineup alongside titles such as Connections, Strands and the Mini Crossword.
Puzzle guides offered a familiar set of strategic reminders for players working through Tuesday’s word or preparing for future puzzles. Common advice includes opening with a word containing frequently used letters and multiple vowels, such as ADIEU, AUDIO, RAISE, ATONE or STONE, to quickly surface useful information before narrowing down toward a final answer. Guides also cautioned players to remain alert to the possibility of duplicate letters within a solution, even when a word appears straightforward at first glance, since overlooking a repeated letter has tripped up solvers on past puzzles featuring words like BUZZY, which contains a double Z.
One tracker outlined general endgame strategy for players who find themselves running low on guesses, advising a calm, methodical approach rather than rushing toward a final answer. “Stay calm under pressure,” the guide advised. “The sixth guess can feel intense, but don’t rush. Take a breath and think of all the possibilities that fit your clues.” The same source also recommended paying close attention to common word endings, such as -ED, -ER or -Y, which appear frequently among Wordle solutions and can help narrow down remaining possibilities once several letters have already been confirmed.
Looking back across recent puzzles, Tuesday’s word continued a stretch that has featured a wide mix of concrete, everyday vocabulary. According to PC Guide, the previous 10 Wordle answers before Tuesday’s puzzle were STOUT, CLACK, AVIAN, CANAL, AMEND, DEMON, SLING, TODDY, SWAMI and PIZZA. The outlet also noted that, since February 2, 2026, the New York Times has begun reintroducing older previously used words back into the daily rotation, a shift that began with CIGAR, the very first Wordle solution ever used and the first answer selected after the Times took over the game’s operation. Despite that change, puzzle trackers cautioned that recently used words are not expected to repeat again anytime soon.
Beyond the standard daily puzzle, Wordle’s broader ecosystem has continued to expand in recent years, inspiring companion games that build on its core format. Worldle, a geography-based spinoff in which players guess a country based on its outline shape, offered WESTERN SAHARA as its answer for July 14, continuing to challenge players’ knowledge of world geography using the same six-guess, distance-based feedback structure as the original game. For fans of the Times’ broader puzzle offerings, Tuesday’s NYT Spelling Bee answer carried the center letter M, while the previous day’s Spelling Bee solution was COMMITTAL.
The puzzle’s continued popularity nearly five years after its original release has been attributed in large part to its simplicity and shareability. Each day brings exactly one new word, with no ads interrupting the format, and players can share their results on social media through a grid of colored squares that reveals their guessing pattern without spoiling the actual answer for others who haven’t yet played. That shareable format helped fuel Wordle’s rapid rise in the early 2020s and has continued to sustain a large, dedicated daily audience in the years since.
Players who did not solve Tuesday’s puzzle were reminded by tracking outlets that a new Wordle puzzle becomes available every day at midnight in each player’s local time zone, meaning a missed word carries no bearing on future attempts and streak-conscious players can simply pick back up with the next day’s release. The Times has continued to expand its broader portfolio of daily puzzle offerings in recent years, part of a wider strategy aimed at keeping readers returning to its games platform on a consistent basis, with Wordle remaining the most widely recognized entry point into that ecosystem.
Wednesday’s Wordle puzzle is set to reset at midnight Eastern time, continuing the game’s unbroken daily cadence. Players looking for an early head start on hints can typically expect a new round of guides and clues to appear across puzzle-tracking sites shortly after the transition, following the same structural format used for Tuesday’s reveal.
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