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Wordle answer (#556): What is the Friday January 6 Wordle word?

Stuck on today's Wordle word for Jan 6? Read our hints and the Wordle answer below!

Ollie's cat Kira cuddles up to a phone that is playing Wordle.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Stuck on today's Wordle answer for Friday 6 January 2023? For all its simplicity, it's very easy to guess yourself into a corner while playing Wordle. With just six guesses before you're out of time, all it takes is some bad luck with your choice of starting word, and you could be about to end that all-important winning streak.

Today's Wordle word in particular is a tricky one. Not only is it an unusual word, but it's also unusual in its... shall we say genetic makeup? Regardless, you've come to the right place. We're here to help you conquer Wordle today, with our list of handy hints below and our reveal of today's Wordle answer just below the video.


Looking for today's solution? Check out the Wordle hint and answer for Thursday 5th December!


Wordle today: Hints for the Jan 6 Wordle word

Before we reveal the Wordle answer for today, why not see if you can figure out the solution with the help of our four handy hints below:

  • Today's Wordle word has more vowels than consonants.
  • There are only 4 unique letters in this word.
  • The final 3 letters spell out a word relating to deception.
  • If you were to guess the word "LIBEL", 4 letters would turn yellow.
Looking for an alternative to Wordle? Here are eight of our favourite Wordle-likes to add to your morning puzzle routine.Watch on YouTube

What is today's Wordle answer on Jan 6?

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

BELIE.

As we said, a tricky word today, not only because of the non-consecutive double "E" and the weighting towards vowels rather than consonants, but also the word itself is hardly a common one. So congratulations if you got the answer!


What does the Wordle answer today mean?

"BELIE" is a verb. To belie something means to represent something in a way that hides another aspect of that thing. It's often used in reference to a person's actions or appearance. For instance: the man's bright smile belied the coldness in his eyes.


How to play Wordle

Wordle is wonderfully simple. The aim is to guess the correct five-letter word within six guesses. After each guess, the letters of your chosen word will highlight green if they're in the correct place, yellow if they're in the wrong place, or grey if they don't appear in the word at all.

Using these clues you can start to narrow down the correct word. Head over to the Wordle site to try it for yourself!


How to share your Wordle results without spoilers

A screenshot of the Wordle sharing panel, with the sharing button highlighted and an example on the right of the spoiler-free sharing format which is copied to the clipboard when a user clicks the sharing button.
Use the built-in Wordle sharing feature to share your results without spoiling the answer!

Wordle has a built-in method of sharing your results in a spoiler-free way, so that those you sent it to don't see today's Wordle word itself, only the colours in your grid to show how well you did.

To share your Wordle results, simply complete (or lose) today's Wordle, and then wait a moment for the statistics panel to appear on your screen. Then tap the "SHARE" button.

On PC this will simply copy the text into your clipboard, so you can then paste the text anywhere you wish, whether it's a private message or a status update on social media. On iPhone or Android, when you tap the "SHARE" button you'll have the option either to copy to clipboard, or to share the results directly to another app on your phone (such as WhatsApp or Twitter).

Using the built-in sharing feature of Wordle is a much nicer way of sharing your results than potentially spoiling the answer to those who haven't yet had the chance to play today's Wordle themselves. So we highly encourage you to use it!


How did Wordle begin?

Wordle began life as a little family game created by software engineer Josh Wardle. He created the game so that he and his partner could play a fun little word game together during the pandemic, and they quickly realised that there was something quite special in this simple little guessing game. So after a bit of refinement, Wardle released it to the public on his website.

The game first released in October 2021, and by the end of the year it had two million daily players. Wordle became a viral hit, thanks in large part to the ease with which players could share their results in a spoiler-free manner on Twitter and other social media sites. In January 2022, Wardle accepted an offer form the New York Times to acquire Wordle for a seven-figure sum. Well done, Mr Wardle. Well done indeed.


Are any Wordle words not allowed?

A Wordle grid with punctuation instead of letters for most of the tiles, and a red cross over the whole image.
You can type in any words you like, but be aware that the actual answer will never be a rude word.

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 Wordle is starting to get too easy, the first thing you can try is to turn on Hard Mode. You can do this on the Wordle site by clicking the cog icon in the top-right of the screen. Hard Mode means that any highlighted letters must be used in all future guesses. This stops you from using the common tactic of choosing two words like "OUNCE" and "PAINS" to test all five vowels early on.

You can take it up another notch by playing by what we call "Ultra-Hard" rules. This means that every guess you enter must potentially be the answer. If you were just playing on regular Hard Mode, and you typed "MOIST", and the "O" appeared yellow, then nothing would stop you from making "POLAR" as your next word, even though it couldn't possibly be the answer because you already know the "O" is in the wrong place. If you play by "Ultra-Hard" rules, that's not allowed. You must adhere to every clue, and make sure every single word you enter is potentially the answer.

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 is Worldle, in which you must guess a country of the world based on its shape. There's also Waffle, 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; and Quordle, 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 the best Wordle starting words for the greatest chance of success. You can also check out our archive of past Wordle answers to see which words have been chosen previously.

Use our Wordle Solver tool to 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.

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