Wordle answer today (#569): What is the Monday January 9 Wordle word

Stuck on today’s Wordle answer for Monday 9 January 2023? Created and hosted by Josh Wardle before the New York Times bought it this time last year, Wordle is one of the few games that has ever managed to penetrate the non-gaming zeitgeist and become a household name even for those who don’t play games. Everyone knows Wordle. And if you don’t, what better time to start!

Today’s Wordle, I’m afraid to say, is a very devious one, and I’m guessing it’ll trip up a lot of people around the world, and and several thousand win streaks. If you don’t want your name to be counted among that disappointing list, then take a look at our hints below for the Wordle answer today, or scroll below the video to reveal today’s tricksome solution!

Wordle today: Hints for the Jan 9 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 handy hints below:

• Today’s Wordle word contains one of the least common letters in the English language.
• There are more vowels than consonants.
• The word refers to a mythical creature in British folklore.
• The final letter is “E”.

What is today’s Wordle answer on Jan 9?

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

PIXIE.

Wow, what a tough Wordle word! Not only is there a repeated letter (a vowel, no less), but consonants are in the minority, and one of them is an “X”! Please, don’t be downtrodden if you didn’t quite arrive at today’s Wordle answer. This one’s a real stinker.

What does the Wordle answer today mean?

“PIXIE” is the name of a supernatural creature in British folklore. In such lore, pixies are generally thought of as small spirit-like creatures, often with wings. They’re said to be found in groups, and are very rambunctious and mischievous in nature, taking great pleasure in tricking and teasing others.

In more recent times the word “PIXIE” has also come to refer to a style of haircut. A pixie cut consists of short hair on the back and sides but slightly longer on the top. Interestingly, it was first popularised in the 1950s by Audrey Hepburn, who had a reputation as the quintessential “gamine”, a French word which according to Wikipedia means “a slim, often boyish, elegant young woman who is, or is perceived to be, mischievous or teasing”. Notice the connection between that description and the pixie of folklore?

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 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 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, Power Language.

The game was released in October 2021, and by the end of the year the game had two million daily players. It 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 from the New York Times to acquire Wordle for a seven-figure sum. Well done, Mr Wardle. Well done indeed.

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, there are a few ways you can make the game more challenging for yourself. The first choice 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 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.