2. Start letter
Today's Wordle answer could prove a nasty one. Though, according to the New York Times' WordleBot, the average player completes Wordle #1,106 in 4.0 moves, in both easy and hard modes.
Each day, we will update this article with Wordle hints and tips to help you find today's answer. And if the hints aren't enough, we'll even give you the answer, in case you're really stuck or just haven't had time to complete today's puzzle. Plus, we are also including an analysis of yesterday's puzzle, #1,105, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
So be warned: spoilers lie ahead for game #1,106. Only read on if you want to know today's Wordle answer!
Today's Wordle answer — hints to help you solve it
Our first tip is that you should use one of the best Wordle start words for every game you play. But if you want some more specific clues to today's Wordle answer, then here you go:
- It contains two of the five vowels.*
- There are no repeated letters.
- Three characters are among the five most common Wordle letters (but it also contains the fourth rarest!)
* By vowel, we mean A, E, I, O, U. There are other letters that are sometimes considered to be vowels, depending on how they are used.
Those hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Wordle answer. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then skip down further for that.
Alright then, here's a larger hint: Today's Wordle answer is black and white.
What does today's Wordle start with?
The answer to Wordle #1,106 starts with Z, so combined with the hints above you should now have all the clues you need to get the answer and not break a Wordle streak.
OK, it's now time to scroll down for the answer…
Today's Wordle answer
So, what is today's Wordle answer for game #1,106?
Drumroll, please — it's ZEBRA.
Hello Wordlers. I knew this day would come: ZEBRA hasn't been the answer since I took over this column, so I assumed it had to be in the deck somewhere. That doesn't mean I was ready for it: who's going to play a 'Z' unless there's no alternative?
Interestingly, my start word of ORATE — which contains all five of the most common Wordle letters — set me up as well as possible. 'E', 'R' and 'A' all turned yellow, leaving 78 possible answers in play.
WordleBot's best Wordle start words were those that managed to get at least one of those letters to turn green. LEAPT, for example, leaves 19 solutions, while DEALT drops that to 18. If you played REACT, only four possibilities would be left over.
As regular readers will know, I try and prioritize 'I', 'C', 'S', 'N' and 'L' for my second turn.
With three yellow letters, I managed to fit two of the hitlist around them with CLEAR. That reduced the number of possible answers to 14, according to WordleBot*.
RAVEN was my next guess, and for the first time since I started writing this column, I managed to turn three letters yellow in three different slots.
At this point, I was pretty desperate to get any of those letters to turn green, so I tried what felt like a long shot: DERMA. You'll note this isn't in the list in the footnote ("DERMA is a valid guess, but it’s unlikely to be a solution based on what I’ve learned from playing Wordle", explains WordleBot).
But it did the job, giving me two green letters and revealing a third via the process of elimination. The answer had to be ?E?RA.
ZEBRA? I couldn't see any other options, so typed it in. To my relief, it was correct, giving me a five-turn win.
Hopefully today's 'Z' didn't trip you up, Wordlers. See you tomorrow.
* These were: HAREM, BARED, DARED, EARED, FARED, PARED, RAGED, RAKED, RAZED, RAMEN, ZEBRA, RAVEN, AIRED and RAVED.
Yesterday's Wordle answer
Reading this in a later time zone? The Wordle answer for game #1,105 was DROVE.
Hello Wordlers. Today's Wordle was one of those tricky puzzles where a lot of options are left even when you have three green letters. It doesn't help that the last two characters are pretty rare, representing the 13th ('D') and 22nd ('V') most common Wordle letters.
Still, ORATE gave me the best possible chances of completion, with three letters on the board: two greens and a yellow. That left just 13 possible answers available, according to WordleBot*.
That was hard to beat, but could any of WordleBot's best Wordle start words? Yes, but not many. TRIED leaves 12 answers, while TROPE drops that to eight. If you played TRADE, only three options would remain in play.
On my second turn, I aim to prioritize the next most common letters: 'I', 'C', 'S', 'N' and 'L'.
CRONE was a good way of doing this, but it actually only ruled out three answers, with just 'O' turning green.
Now it was just a case of working through my remaining untested characters. I considered ERODE, but didn't want to play a double just yet, so tried PROSE. No dice, but I halved the number of options to five.
How about DROLE? No, but with 'D' joining 'R', 'O' and 'E' in the green camp, there was only one option left. I typed in DROVE and completed the puzzle in five turns.
Hopefully you did well today, Wordlers. See you tomorrow.
* These were: CRONE, DRONE, PRONE, BROKE, DROVE, ERODE, FROZE, PROBE, PROSE, PROVE, GROVE, GROPE and PROLE.
Previous Wordle answers
If you're looking for a list of older Wordle answers, we can also help. Here's a list going back 20 games.
- Wordle #1,105: DROVE
- Wordle #1,104: ORDER
- Wordle #1,103: KNEAD
- Wordle #1,102: SAVOR
- Wordle #1,101: DOLLY
- Wordle #1,100: BUGLE
- Wordle #1,099: EDICT
- Wordle #1,098: PAINT
- Wordle #1,097: SCENT
- Wordle #1,096: TERSE
- Wordle #1,095: COVER
- Wordle #1,094: PRIOR
- Wordle #1,093: GRIND
- Wordle #1,092: PROUD
- Wordle #1,091: VAULT
- Wordle #1,090: ANGST
- Wordle #1,089: DETER
- Wordle #1,088: SWUNG
- Wordle #1,087: MANGA
- Wordle #1,086: CROWD
- Wordle #1,085: HENCE
Wordle tips — how to win at Wordle
The best tip I can give is to use one of the best Wordle start words. I can't stress this enough — it makes a massive difference.
Without one, you'll be scrabbling around in the dark trying (and possibly failing) to find the right five letters (or possibly fewer) out of the 26 possibles. But clever people (not me) have done the math and identified the best start words based on both frequency in English and frequency among Wordle answers. So use them!
Secondly, think about combinations, especially at the start and end. Some options are far more common than others — for instance, SH, ST, CR and CH all feature frequently.
Vowels obviously need consideration too: not all Wordle answers will contain more than one, but plenty do, and some even have three. A good Wordle start word should have used a couple, but if they don't feature you might well want to try another one or two on your next go. Plus, remember the Y — this sometimes acts as a surrogate vowel, and is easy to forget. It also appears at the end of plenty of words.
Finally, try out possibilities. So long as you don't press 'Enter' you can try possible answers to see how they look on screen. Put in likely letters plus any you know are definitely in the word, then mentally change one to the other available options. This technique has worked for me multiple times, and it's particularly helpful when the word in question is not an obvious one (like FJORD or ISLET).
But if you're still struggling with Wordle, check out how Tom's Guide's Wordle experts have honed their strategy after playing a lot of Wordle after it first launched.
We also have plenty of Wordle tips and tricks to share, like how we've analyzed every Wordle answer used to look for trends and have some further advice for you there. And if you're new to the game you should also take a look at our What is Wordle? guide.
What else should I know about Wordle?
Wordle officially launched in October 2021, but actually started in June of that year and celebrated its first birthday on June 19, 2022. (You can read my thoughts on the 5 things Wordle needs to improve if it's to keep us playing on into a fourth year.)
However, it only grew in popularity towards the end of the year, then went viral in January as the world woke up to its charms. In fact, it proved so successful that The New York Times bought Wordle for a seven-figure sum in early February and the game is now part of NYT Games.
It's played via the NYT Games website here, and is entirely free. Both the NYT and the game's creator, Josh Wardle, have stated that it will remain free. Some people think that Wordle has got harder since the NYT takeover, but it really hasn't.
Wordle is a simple game in which your challenge is to guess a five-letter word in six attempts. Each time you guess, you're told which of your chosen letters are in the target word, and whether they are in the right place.
If a letter is in the correct place, it turns green. If it's in the word but in the wrong place, it turns yellow. And if it's not in the word at all, it turns gray.
There's just one puzzle a day, and everyone completes the same one. It resets at midnight each day. You'll find more information about the game in our What is Wordle? article.
NYT Strands answer
If you've solved Wordle and need help with other games from the New York Times, we suggest you check out our guide on today's NYT Strands answer, which will give you some hints as well as the full answer to today's puzzle.
Wordle Alternatives
If you're eager for another game to pass the time while you wait, we've put together a list of the best Wordle alternatives.
Other Wordle alternatives to try are the ultra-stressful (but very good) Squabble and the soccer-themed, Who Are Ya?. We also like the geography-based Wordle clone Worldle, the Star Wars-themed SWordle and the math-based Mathler.
There are certainly plenty of options once you've finished Wordle for the day!
