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Wordle answer (Sunday 1 January 2023): Wordle word of the day #561 and hintsHints and the answer to Wordle #561

Hints and the answer to Wordle #561

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

A close-up of part of a Wordle grid. The letters spell “what is the answer”.

Looking for the Wordle answer for Sunday 1 January 2023?Happy new year, fellow Wordlers! Now that 2022 is officially history, I hope 2023 brings you good cheer, good fortune, and a good run of successfully completed Wordle conundrums. Speaking of which, it’s time for our first new year’s resolution, to complete today’sWordlepuzzle.

Below you’ll find three hints that will shepherd you gently toward unveiling the Wordle answer today. If you’re simply looking to maintain a streak, scroll further down the page to find the solution.

Looking for today’s solution? Check out theWordle hint and answer for Thursday 26th December!

Wordle January 1 hints

Don’t expect the Wordle answer today to spare you just because you were up late celebrating the new year. It’s possibly the toughest word we’ve seen since Christmas. Lucky for you, there are three clues below to help you find the correct answer:

Eight Great Wordle-likesLooking for an alternative to Wordle? Here are eight of our favourite Wordle-likes to add to your morning puzzle routine.Watch on YouTube

Eight Great Wordle-likes

Cover image for YouTube video

Wordle answer today January 1

It’s time to reveal the answer to today’s Wordle. The word is…

WHINE.

To whine is to make a complaining cry or sound, such as a dog that just can’t wait to go for that New Year’s Day walk. It also applies to more general complaining in a peevish, self-pitying way, such as your hungover partner who really doesn’t want to go for that New Year’s Day walk. Whine derives from two old English words -hwinan- which refers to the whine of an arrow flying through the air, andhwinsian- which applies specifically to the whining of dogs.

How to play Wordle

Wordle is a very straightforward word guessing game. The aim is to guess the correct five-letter word in just six guesses. With each guess, the individual letters of your chosen word will highlight green if they’re in the correct place, or yellow if they’re in the wrong place. If a letter doesn’t appear in the solution word at all, it’ll remain unhighlighted.

How did Wordle begin?

Are any Wordle words not allowed?

You can type in pretty much any five-letter word in the English language and Wordle will accept it as a guess. However, the answer is picked each day from a much smaller list of more common five-letter words. There are still thousands of possible answers, of course, but it means the answer will never be a word as obscure as, say, “THIOL”, or “CAIRD”, or “MALIC” (yes, those are all real words).

There are very occasional words which the New York Times will choose not to publish as the day’s Wordle answer, perhaps for reasons relating to recent news or politics. For example, shortly after news broke that Roe v Wade might be overturned in the United States, the NYT decided to change the March 30th word from “FETUS” to “SHINE”, as the feeling was that the word “fetus” was too politically charged a word in the context of recent events.

The New York Times has also been careful never to allow what they consider to be rude words as the answer to a Wordle puzzle. But of course there’s nothing stopping you from using even the dirtiest of words as guesses, as long as they’re accepted words in the dictionary, and as long as you realise that they’ll never end up being the answer.

Is Wordle getting too easy for you?

If after all that Wordle is still too easy for you, then you could always try one of the many other Wordle-inspired games online that have cropped up over the past year. One of our favourites isWorldle, in which you must guess a country of the world based on its shape. There’s alsoWaffle, which is about swapping letters in a completed grid to complete all the words;Moviedle, which shows you an entire movie in a tiny space of time and challenges you to guess the movie within six guesses; andQuordle, which tasks you with solving four Wordles at once with the same guesses.

If you need some help with future Wordles, be sure to check out our list of thebest Wordle starting wordsfor the greatest chance of success. You can also check out our archive ofpast Wordle answersto see which words have been chosen previously.

Use ourWordle Solver toolto help you figure out the answer to any Wordle in moments! Just pop your current guesses in the grid and watch the tool instantly give you all the potential answers.