By FiveLetterWords · Guide updated . The puzzle date is shown separately.

This page always keeps Wordle #1401 for April 20, 2025. Check that number against your game before opening a hint. The answer remains below a separate reveal.

Wordle changes at midnight in your local time zone. For the current local puzzle, use today’s hints. This dated page keeps the same puzzle when the day changes.

Our independent hints use the verified puzzle answer. Play the official game at The New York Times.

Hints for Wordle #1401

What kind of word

Wiktionary lists it as a noun.

What it means

“To mend by sewing on a piece or pieces of cloth, leather, or the like.”

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.

Fill the gap

“His sleeves had _____ on the elbows where different fabric had been sewn on to replace material that had worn away.”

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentence selected from Wiktionary, with the answer removed.

How it ends

Ends in H.

The middle letter

The middle letter is T.

Reveal the answer and explanation

The answer to Wordle #1,401 was

PATCH: A piece of cloth, or other suitable material, sewed or otherwise fixed upon a garment to repair or strengthen it, especially upon an old garment to cover a hole.

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.

Word difficulty: Moderate

Why it may be difficult: only one vowel.

The word rating describes familiarity and letter features. The solver score below measures how a fixed strategy handles the puzzle; an unusual word can still be easy for that strategy.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

Solver pressure: 91/100 (hard for the solver). This is a percentile among past puzzles under the same strategy: 0 is easiest and 100 is hardest for the solver.

28 Possible answers after CRANE
52 Possible answers after SLATE
289 Possible answers after ADIEU
7 Words in the _ATCH family
4 Guesses in the solver replay

This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →

Wordle #1,401, measured

This section compares PATCH's solver-difficulty percentile, first-guess results for ten familiar openers, and opt-in player reports. Each number identifies its dataset.

Solver difficulty, as a percentile

91/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, PATCH measured harder for the solver than about 91% of all 1,952 recorded answers to date. Its rating is hard for the solver. The example solver route takes four turns; CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU leave a large group.

Solver pressure ranks the answer within the pool; it does not measure player performance. The opener table compares first-guess results, and the contributed ratings report player results.

CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU benchmark

TRACE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 7 of the 2,384 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 443 candidates, about 63 times as many. The vowel-heavy probes ADIEU and AUDIO revealed comparatively little here. Vowel coverage helps only when the answer's vowels are still in doubt.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against PATCH, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
TRACE TRACE 7
CRANE CRANE 28
SALET SALET 29
TARSE TARSE 32
SLATE SLATE 52
STARE STARE 74
RAISE RAISE 93
ARISE ARISE 160
ADIEU ADIEU 289
AUDIO AUDIO 443

“Answers still possible” counts the words in the site's 2,384-word working answer pool whose feedback would match that opener exactly. This is pattern arithmetic, not a simulation. A smaller number means the opener left fewer possible answers after the first guess. It does not describe later turns.

Contributed player ratings

Not enough contributed games to publish player figures for this puzzle. Per-puzzle numbers appear only after at least 10 opt-in games arrive. See how the Observatory collects and publishes player data →

What did you get?

Tap your result to compare it with contributed games. Your choice stays in this browser and is not sent anywhere.

1 Suppressed
2 Suppressed
3 12
4 10
5 Suppressed
6 Suppressed
X Suppressed

The bars pool all 40 contributed games across every completed puzzle. The Observatory does not publish per-puzzle guess distributions below its sample threshold, so this is the broadest available comparison. “Suppressed” marks a low-count cell.

Solver replay

One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to PATCH.

The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for April 20, 2025?
The Wordle answer for April 20, 2025 (puzzle #1401) was PATCH.
What does PATCH mean?
PATCH: A piece of cloth, or other suitable material, sewed or otherwise fixed upon a garment to repair or strengthen it, especially upon an old garment to cover a hole.
Why was Wordle #1401 tricky?
PATCH is rated moderate for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: only one vowel.

Keep solving and playing