The four answers to today’s Quordle (#1638) for July 20, 2026, are ICING, SLICK, GAILY, and RISEN.
If you want to work through the puzzle before seeing the solutions, here are four sets of hints – one for each word.
Word 1 hints (ICING): Five letters. Starts with I. Two vowels, both I, in positions 1 and 3. You’ll find it on birthday cakes and in hockey arenas, though it means something very different in each place.
Word 2 hints (SLICK): Five letters. Starts with S. One vowel (I) in position 3. No repeated letters. Describes something smooth, glossy, or impressively efficient – or the sheen of oil on water.
Word 3 hints (GAILY): Five letters. Starts with G. Two vowels (A and I) in positions 2 and 4. An adverb. Think bright colours, high spirits, and cheerful noise.
Word 4 hints (RISEN): Five letters. Starts with R. Two vowels (I and E) in positions 2 and 4. The past participle of a very common verb. The sun does it every morning.
Quordle #1638 answers for July 20, 2026:
Word 1: ICING – a sweet coating for cakes, pastries, and doughnuts; also the hockey penalty called when a player shoots the puck the length of the ice without it being touched.
Word 2: SLICK – smooth and glossy in surface or manner; effortlessly clever; also used as a noun for an oil spill on water.
Word 3: GAILY – adverb form of gay in its older sense, meaning cheerfully, brightly, or with lively energy. Common in nineteenth-century literature and still turns up in Quordle from time to time.
Word 4: RISEN – past participle of rise. Used in contexts from the sun coming up to bread dough expanding to historical and religious language about something returning from below.
Today’s set leaned toward the moderate-to-tricky end. ICING is recognisable, but the double I can throw off early guesses, while GAILY is an adverb – a part of speech Quordle uses sparingly but strategically. SLICK and RISEN are among the more approachable five-letter words in the grid.
If you are working through the rest of the day’s NYT word games, the Wordle #1857 answer for July 20 is also available, along with today’s NYT Connections #1135 answers and the NYT Strands #869 hints and answer.
