January 2024

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for January 3, 2024, read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is medium difficulty; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for January 3, Wordle #928! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

We have four common letters today, and one that’s a bit rarer.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

Think of spinning. Like a spiral in a circle, like a wheel within a wheel…

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

Nope, not today.

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There is one vowel in today’s word.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with T.

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with L.

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is TWIRL.

How I solved today’s Wordle

ARISE got some hits, but I went ahead with TOUCH anyway. Now I know that the word is T I with an R somewhere toward the end. What could it be but TWIRL?

Wordle 928 3/6

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A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word.

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word:

Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)
Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)
Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

CRANE
TRACE
SLANT
CRATE
CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

SALET
REAST
TRACE
CRATE
SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another
Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.
Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.
Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.
Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.
Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

Today’s puzzle looks tricky, but it’s not as hard as it may seem at first. If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Wednesday, January 3, 2024, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, there are spoilers below for January 3, NYT Connections #206! Read on if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game.

If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.

Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And farther down the page, I’ll reveal the themes and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!

Credit: Connections/NYT

Does today’s Connections game require any special knowledge?

There are musical references here, plus a few terms you might recognize from spy movies or political thrillers.

Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle

Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:

Yellow category – Like a bird.
Green category – Secret devices.
Blue category – Fill in the bubble.
Purple category – Partial names.

Does today’s Connections game involve any wordplay?

Yep, there’s a purple one that is…sort of a fill-in-the-blank? It’s a bit more specific than usual.

Ready to hear the answers? Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.

BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Connections puzzle!

We’re about to give away some of the answers. Scroll slowly if you don’t want the whole thing spoiled. (The full solution is a bit further down.)

What are the ambiguous words in today’s Connections?

FLY and BUG and TICK don’t go together today; none of them are insects. They are, respectively, a verb, a device, and a MARK.
MARK and MIKE can both be names, but they are just ordinary nouns now (and they don’t go together).
COLE isn’t a reference to COLEslaw; think of rapper J. COLE.

What are the categories in today’s Connections?

Yellow: MOVE THROUGH THE AIR
Green: HIDDEN LISTENING DEVICES
Blue: SELECT, AS A BOX ON A FORM
Purple: RAPPERS MINUS FIRST LETTER

DOUBLE BEWARE: THE SOLUTION IS BELOW

Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below.

What are the yellow words in today’s Connections?

The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is MOVE THROUGH THE AIR and the words are: FLOAT, FLY, GLIDE, SOAR

What are the green words in today’s Connections?

The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is HIDDEN LISTENING DEVICES and the words are: BUG, MIKE, TAP, WIRE.

What are the blue words in today’s Connections?

The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is SELECT, AS A BOX ON A FORM and the words are: CHECK, MARK, TICK, X

What are the purple words in today’s Connections?

The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is RAPPERS MINUS FIRST LETTER and the words are: [E-] 40, [J.] COLE, [T-] PAIN, [Q-] TIP.

How I solved today’s Connections

This one looked tricky, but SOAR had to go with FLY, right? And there are two other flight-related words. 🟨 Next I saw the TICK box, which British people say in place of a CHECK box. MARK and X went with that nicely. 🟦 My next tip-off was MIKE, which could either be a person (but I didn’t see any partners for it) or a shortening of microphone. If it’s a microphone, maybe we’re looking at wiretapping–a WIRE, a TAP–or a BUG. 🟩 I wasn’t sure what to do with the last group, except that this whole time, whenever I looked at PAIN I thought of T-PAIN. Turns out I was closer than I knew. 🟪

Connections 
Puzzle #206
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How to play Connections

I have a full guide to playing Connections, but here’s a refresher on the rules:

First, find the Connections game either on the New York Times website or in their Crossword app. You’ll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Often they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather) but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on).

Select four items and hit the Submit button. If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.) If your guess was incorrect, you’ll get a chance to try again.

You win when you’ve correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.

How to win Connections

The most important thing to know to win Connections is that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle seemed to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters along with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen (along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH). So don’t hit “submit” until you’ve confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things.

If you’re stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If all that comes to mind when you see WHISTLER is the painting nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother,” you might be on to something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close, because Close didn’t fit any of the obvious themes, either.

Another way to win when you’re stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints–which is why we share these pointers every day. Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!

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Today’s Wordle Hints (and Answer) for Wednesday, January 3, 2024