Wordle #1,737 landed on March 22, 2026, and it wasn't the trickiest puzzle the New York Times has thrown at players — but the starting letter likely tripped up anyone who relies on vowel-heavy openers. If you're looking back at this one or checking your answer, here's everything you need.
Quick answer: The Wordle answer for March 22, 2026 (puzzle #1,737) is BASIL.
Hints for Wordle #1,737
If you landed here mid-solve and want to work it out yourself, these progressive clues should help you narrow things down without giving the full answer away immediately.
| Hint | Detail |
|---|---|
| Repeated letters | None — every letter is unique |
| Vowel count | Two vowels |
| First letter | B |
| Last letter | L |
| Meaning | An aromatic herb in the mint family, commonly used in cooking |
The letter B is one of the less frequently guessed starting consonants, which is why many players burn a guess or two before landing on it. If your go-to starter word is something like STARE or ADIEU, you'll pick up the vowel positions early but may need a second guess to pin down that B.
Why BASIL can be tricky
BASIL is a perfectly common English word, but Wordle difficulty often has less to do with vocabulary and more to do with letter frequency. B ranks relatively low among starting letters in the game's solution list, so players who open with high-frequency consonants like S, T, or R won't get a green square in position one on their first try. The silver lining is that A, I, and L are all popular letters, so a solid second guess should light up the board quickly.
The word also has no repeated letters, which removes one of Wordle's most frustrating traps. Once you've confirmed the two vowels (A and I) and the final L, the remaining possibilities shrink fast.
Recent Wordle answers near March 22
Avoiding recently used words is a simple way to eliminate wrong guesses. Here's what the puzzles around this date looked like.
| Date | Puzzle # | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| March 17 | 1,732 | CLASP |
| March 18 | 1,733 | AMPLY |
| March 19 | 1,734 | REHAB |
| March 20 | 1,735 | OASIS |
| March 21 | 1,736 | SLICK |
| March 22 | 1,737 | BASIL |
Notice that the answers in this stretch lean on different letter clusters, so the game continued its pattern of avoiding back-to-back overlap in starting letters or vowel placement.
Picking a strong starting word
The best Wordle opener loads up on the most frequently used letters in English. E, A, R, S, and T appear in the largest share of five-letter words, so starters built around those letters tend to eliminate the most possibilities in one shot. Words like STARE, TRAIN, CLOSE, and ADIEU are all popular choices for exactly that reason. On the flip side, you generally want to avoid letters like Z, J, and Q early on — they show up in very few solutions.
A good secondary strategy is to make sure your first two guesses together cover at least three or four different vowels and a spread of common consonants. That way, even if your first word comes back mostly gray, you've gathered enough information to make an educated third guess.
Wordle resets every day at midnight in your local time zone, so each puzzle is only live for 24 hours. If you missed March 22's BASIL, NYT Games subscribers can revisit it through the official Wordle Archive on the New York Times games site.