Your Guide to the Wordle Puzzle for January 14, 2025
Searching for the Wordle solution for January 14, 2025? You’re in the right place! This post includes hints, strategies to enhance your gameplay, and ultimately, the answer. Today’s challenge is of moderate difficulty; personally, it took me four attempts to crack it. Warning: spoilers for Wordle #1,305 are below! Continue reading for some hints followed by the solution.
Understanding How to Play Wordle
The Wordle game resides here on the New York Times website. Each day at the stroke of midnight, a new puzzle awaits your intellect.
Begin by guessing a five-letter word. The feedback will show letters in green if they’re correct, yellow if they belong to the word but are in the wrong position, and gray if they’re completely absent from the day’s secret word. For additional guidance, take a look at this comprehensive guide to playing Wordle and my strategy suggestions here for advanced players. (More insights can also be found at the end of this post, following the hints and answer.)
Ready to uncover some hints? Let’s go!
Are There Any Unique Letters in Today’s Wordle?
Common letters can be understood using the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Tip: Remember this mnemonic, pronounced “Edwin Shirdloo,” as if he’s your buddy.)
Interestingly, there are only two letters identifiable from our mnemonic today—one quite common, while the other is less so.
Could You Provide a Hint for Today’s Wordle?
This word might describe attire or a significant occasion.
Does the Wordle for Today Contain Any Duplicate Letters?
Today’s word has no repeated letters at all.
What is the Vowel Count in Today’s Wordle?
Today’s puzzle features one vowel and a “sometimes” vowel.
What Letter Initiates Today’s Wordle?
The opening letter of today’s word is F.
What Letter Concludes Today’s Wordle?
The closing letter of the word is Y.
What Is Today’s Wordle Solution?
Drumroll, please… Today’s solution is FANCY.
Steps Taken to Solve Today’s Wordle
The approach started with RAISE and TOUCH, followed by BLAND. Ultimately, FANCY emerged as the best fit.
Wordle 1,305 4/6 ⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛ ⬛⬛🟨🟨⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Solution to Yesterday’s Wordle
Yesterday’s challenge was moderately easy. The hint indicated “as a noun, an outer garment,” revealing a word with three common letters, one fairly common letter, and another somewhat common letter.
The answer to the previous day’s puzzle was CLOAK.
A Brief Introduction to Wordle
The essence of Wordle is to figure out the secret word of the day. Once you launch the game, you’ll encounter a blank grid of letters, and it’s your job to make the first guess by typing in any five-letter word.
Subsequently, use color feedback for guidance: Green signifies an accurate guess in the correct position. For instance, if you guess PARTY and the word is PURSE, P and R will turn green.
-
Yellow indicates that the letter exists in the word but is not situated where you guessed it. (If you guessed PARTY, and the word is ROAST, the R, A, and T will be highlighted yellow.)
-
Gray denotes that the letter is not found in the word at all. (A complete gray grid after guessing PARTY means it cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)
Taking into account these clues, make another guess and continue until you determine the correct word within six attempts before your chances run out.
Optimal Starting Words for Wordle
What should your opening guess be? The ideal starters typically include frequently used letters, enhancing your chances of uncovering yellow or green tiles. (Even if you encounter all grays from common letters, it’s still valuable information to narrow down options.) While no single “best” starting word exists, a Wordle analysis tool suggests beginning with one of the following:
-
CRANE
-
TRACE
-
SLANT
-
CRATE
-
CARTE
Furthermore, MIT’s analysis revealed that starting with any of these words will eliminate the most options in your initial guess:
-
SALET
-
REAST
-
TRACE
-
CRATE
-
SLATE
Other solid choices include ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO introduce more vowels, yet employing consonants first with a word like RENTS or CLAMP could be beneficial. Select a strategy and see how it unfolds!
Winning Strategies for Wordle
For those keen on honing their skills, several strategy guides are available, which might prove insightful. This guide explores utilizing consonants effectively, while that guide delves into a strategy leveraging the most frequently used letters. In this advanced guide, a three-pronged method is discussed for extracting clues while optimizing winning chances.
What sets successful players apart from those who fail is the ability to utilize guesses to gather insights about the present letters. For instance, if you identify that a word ends with -OUND, refrain from exhausting guesses like MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; instead, combine those consonants and opt for MARSH. If H turns yellow, you’ve made a breakthrough.
Additionally, it’s noteworthy that the original Wordle featured a pool of approximately 2,300 solution words, but after its acquisition by the NYT, the game now benefits from an editor who curates the solutions. This means the words can occasionally be slightly more obscure or thematically relevant, such as FEAST during Thanksgiving.
Alternatives to Wordle
If you can’t get enough of guessing games based on five-letter words and similar concepts, check out the top Wordle alternatives, each ranked by difficulty:
-
Dordle and Quordle, where you tackle two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles simultaneously, based on the same guesses. There’s also Octordle, which features eight puzzles, and Sedecordle with 16.
-
Waffle, which presents several scrambled five-letter words in a grid; players must rearrange the letters to solve.
-
Absurdle, which alters the solution following each guess, while still adhering to prior feedback. You must strategically narrow down the options until only one valid word remains.
-
Squabble enables players to compete against others in real-time, with a timer in play; lagging between guesses results in damage, and the last one standing wins.
-
Antiwordle challenges players to avoid guessing the daily solution. Correctly guessed letters must be reused, so the longer it takes, the better the player is at this variant.