Waffle Answer and Hints Today, #1741 for Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026: Clues for Six Words

Today’s Waffle (wafflegame.net) is puzzle #1741, for Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, and it hides six five-letter words in one waffle-shaped grid. Three words read across and three read down, and every word is an ordinary English word. Use the clues below one word at a time; the answers, and a swap-by-swap route to the five-star score, are in a marked spoiler section at the end.

How Waffle works

The board is a five-by-five grid with four holes, so 21 letters are in play. Three words run across (rows 1, 3 and 5) and three run down (columns 1, 3 and 5). You swap any two letters, and you have 15 swaps to finish. Per the game’s own rules page:

Tile color	What it means
Green	The letter is in the right place.
Yellow	The letter is in that row or column, but in a different spot.
Gray	The letter is not in that row or column.

A letter on a corner can be yellow because of either of the two words that meet there. You earn a star for every swap left once the Waffle is solved, and the game says every Waffle can be solved in a minimum of 10 swaps.

Clues for each word

Across

• Row 1: starts with T and ends with K. A verb meaning to express gratitude.
• Row 3: starts with P and ends with R. A noun for a wireless device that receives short messages, popular in the 1990s.
• Row 5: starts with D and ends with A. A noun for a landform at a river’s mouth, or the Greek letter before epsilon.

Down

• Column 1: starts with T and ends with D, and shares its first letter with the row 1 word. An adjective meaning lukewarm.
• Column 3: starts with A and ends with L. A noun for a winged messenger in art.
• Column 5: starts with K and ends with A. A noun for the sum of a person’s actions, in Hindu and Buddhist thought.

A solving tip for today

Start with the corners, because each one serves two words. Today’s solution has four E’s and four A’s, so check which line each one belongs to before you swap it. Once a corner is green, fix the rest of that row or column before moving on; a swap that turns two tiles green is worth more than one that turns one. Count your swaps as you go: with 15 available and 10 as the minimum, you can afford five detours before stars are at risk.

Keep a streak log on our printable weekly calendar or the October 2026 printable calendar.

More of today’s puzzles: Wordle hints, Connections hints and Quordle hints.

Today’s Waffle answers (spoilers)

Stop here if you still want to solve it yourself.

Direction	Position	Answer
Across	Row 1	Thank
Across	Row 3	Pager
Across	Row 5	Delta
Down	Column 1	Tepid
Down	Column 3	Angel
Down	Column 5	Karma

The solved grid, with a dot for each hole:

T H A N K
E . N . A
P A G E R
I . E . M
D E L T A

The 10-swap route to five stars

The starting grid reads like this (letters row by row, dots are holes):

T H M E K
E . E . I
A E G N N
P . A . L
D T R A A

Seven letters start in the right place (T, H, E, K, G, D and the A in row 5, column 5), and the other 14 need to move. One route of 10 swaps, each given as row and column of the two squares, matches the game’s stated minimum:

Swap	Squares swapped	Letters
1	Row 1, column 4 and row 3, column 4	E and N
2	Row 3, column 2 and row 4, column 3	E and A
3	Row 4, column 1 and row 2, column 5	P and I
4	Row 2, column 5 and row 3, column 1	P and A
5	Row 4, column 5 and row 1, column 3	L and M
6	Row 2, column 3 and row 3, column 5	E and N
7	Row 1, column 3 and row 5, column 4	L and A
8	Row 5, column 2 and row 3, column 5	T and E
9	Row 3, column 5 and row 5, column 3	T and R
10	Row 5, column 3 and row 5, column 4	T and L

We applied these ten swaps in order to the starting grid and got the solved grid above. The answers come from the puzzle file the game serves, and a new Waffle arrives each day.