Wordle #1,796 hints & answer for May 20, 2026
· Wednesday
This page always keeps Wordle #1796 for May 20, 2026. 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 #1796
What kind of word
Wiktionary lists it as a noun.
What it means
“Something or someone that has been ruined.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.
Fill the gap
“He was an emotional _____ after the death of his wife.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentence selected from Wiktionary, with the answer removed.
How it ends
Ends in K.
How it starts
Begins with W.
Reveal the answer and explanation
The answer to Wordle #1,796 was
WRECK: Something or someone that has been ruined.
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.
Why it may be difficult: uncommon letters, 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.
How difficult was it for the solver?
Solver pressure: 78/100 (tricky). This is a percentile among past puzzles under the same strategy: 0 is easiest and 100 is hardest for the solver.
This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →
Wordle #1,796, measured
This section compares WRECK'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
This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, WRECK measured harder for the solver than about 78% of all 1,952 recorded answers to date. Its rating is tricky. 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 1 of the 2,384 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, ADIEU left 201 candidates, about 201 times as many. AUDIO came back all gray. None of its letters appear in WRECK. The vowel-heavy probes ADIEU and AUDIO revealed comparatively little here. Vowel coverage helps only when the answer's vowels are still in doubt.
| Opener | First-guess feedback | Answers still possible |
|---|---|---|
| TRACE | TRACE | 1 |
| CRANE | CRANE | 2 |
| ARISE | ARISE | 22 |
| RAISE | RAISE | 104 |
| TARSE | TARSE | 116 |
| STARE | STARE | 122 |
| SLATE | SLATE | 170 |
| SALET | SALET | 173 |
| AUDIO | AUDIO | 197 |
| ADIEU | ADIEU | 201 |
“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 →
See the solver's route to WRECK → It shows which guesses reduced the candidate pool on each turn.
Solver replay
One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to WRECK.
The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.
Common questions
- What was the Wordle answer for May 20, 2026?
- The Wordle answer for May 20, 2026 (puzzle #1796) was WRECK.
- What does WRECK mean?
- WRECK: Something or someone that has been ruined.
- Why was Wordle #1796 tricky?
- WRECK is rated tricky for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: uncommon letters, only one vowel.