You wake up, grab your coffee, and open that familiar grid of white squares. It's a ritual now. For many of us, the day hasn't actually started until those squares turn green—or, more likely on a Tuesday like this, a frustrating sea of gray.
If you're looking for what is the wordle today, you've probably hit a wall. Maybe you’re on your fourth guess and the panic is starting to set in. Honestly, it's a weirdly high-stakes feeling for a simple word game. But today’s puzzle, #1669 for January 13, 2026, is definitely a "thinker." It’s one of those words that feels easy once you see it, yet feels impossible to pull out of thin air when you’re staring at a blank row.
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Hints for the January 13 Wordle
Before I just give it away, maybe you want a nudge. Sometimes a tiny hint is all you need to save your streak without feeling like you "cheated."
- The Vibe: Think of the deep South. Louisiana. Specifically, a kitchen.
- The Structure: There are two vowels in this one.
- The Start: It begins with a G.
- The End: It ends with an O.
- The Repeat: No letters are repeated. Every single tile is unique.
If you’re still scratching your head, think about a "medley" or a "jumble" of things. In a culinary sense, it’s a thick, savory stew. If you’ve ever been to New Orleans, you’ve definitely smelled this cooking on every street corner.
Why Today's Word is Tricky
Today's answer is GUMBO.
Why did it trip people up? Well, for one, the letter U is often a late-game discovery for many players. We tend to prioritize E, A, and I in our first two guesses. If your starter word was something like STARE or CRANE, you likely came up completely empty. That’s a brutal way to start.
According to data from the NYT Wordle Bot, puzzles with an O at the end—but not as part of a common suffix like -TION—tend to have a higher average guess count. Most five-letter words ending in O feel like loanwords or very specific nouns, which makes them harder to "luck" into than something ending in Y or E.
The Answer for Wordle #1669
The Wordle answer for January 13, 2026, is GUMBO.
Basically, a gumbo is more than just a soup. It’s a cultural staple. It uses a roux (fat and flour) as a base and usually features the "holy trinity" of vegetables: celery, bell peppers, and onions. The fact that it’s such a specific noun is what makes it a classic Wordle curveball.
If you missed out on today’s win, don’t beat yourself up. Yesterday’s word was TRIAL, which was arguably much more "standard" English. Moving from a common legal term to a specific regional dish is exactly how the NYT likes to keep us on our toes.
Best Starter Words for Tomorrow
If you want to avoid a "GUMBO" situation in the future, you might want to rethink your opening strategy. A lot of pros are moving away from ADIEU (too many vowels, not enough information) and toward words that test common consonants.
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- SLATE: Still the gold standard for many.
- TRACE: Great for catching that C and R.
- AUDIO: If you really must hunt for vowels first.
- ROUST: Actually would have been a killer move for today’s puzzle.
The reality is that Wordle is as much about luck as it is about vocabulary. You can have the best strategy in the world, but if the word is FUZZY or MUMMY, you’re probably going to lose some hair over it.
Looking Back: Recent Wordle Solutions
Sometimes it helps to know what has already been used, because the game (usually) doesn't repeat words for a very long time. Here is what we've seen over the last few days:
- January 12: TRIAL
- January 11: QUARK
- January 10: MANIC
- January 9: EIGHT
- January 8: BLAST
If you're tracking patterns, you'll notice a mix of very common verbs and slightly more "scientific" or "niche" nouns. GUMBO fits right into that niche category.
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To improve your game for tomorrow, try switching your starting word to something that includes a U or an O if you’ve been neglecting them. Often, we get stuck in a "vowel rut" where we only look for the most common ones and forget that words like GUMBO, QUARK, or SNOUT exist. Use a word that eliminates at least three vowels in the first two turns to narrow the field quickly.