By FiveLetterWords · Guide updated . The puzzle date is shown separately.

This page always keeps Wordle #201 for January 6, 2022. Check that number against your game before opening a hint. The answer remains below a separate reveal.

Wordle changes at midnight in your local time zone. For the current local puzzle, use today’s hints. This dated page keeps the same puzzle when the day changes.

Our independent hints use the verified puzzle answer. Play the official game at The New York Times.

Hints for Wordle #201

What kind of word

Wiktionary lists it as an adjective.

What it means

“Common in a boring way, to the point of being predictable; containing nothing new or fresh.”

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.

How it starts

Begins with B.

How it ends

Ends in L.

The middle letter

The middle letter is N.

Reveal the answer and explanation

The answer to Wordle #201 was

BANAL: Common in a boring way, to the point of being predictable; containing nothing new or fresh.

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.

Word difficulty: Tricky

Why it may be difficult: uncommon in general English, a repeated letter.

The word rating describes familiarity and letter features. The solver score below measures how a fixed strategy handles the puzzle; an unusual word can still be easy for that strategy.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

Solver pressure: 55/100 (middle of the pack). This is a percentile among past puzzles under the same strategy: 0 is easiest and 100 is hardest for the solver.

47 Possible answers after CRANE
59 Possible answers after SLATE
289 Possible answers after ADIEU
3 Guesses in the solver replay

This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →

Wordle #201, measured

This section compares BANAL's solver-difficulty percentile, first-guess results for ten familiar openers, and opt-in player reports. Each number identifies its dataset.

Solver difficulty, as a percentile

55/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, BANAL measured harder for the solver than about 55% of all 1,952 recorded answers to date. Its rating is middle of the pack. It repeats A; CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU leave a large group.

Solver pressure ranks the answer within the pool; it does not measure player performance. The opener table compares first-guess results, and the contributed ratings report player results.

CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU benchmark

SALET left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 18 of the 2,384 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 443 candidates, about 25 times as many. The vowel-heavy probes ADIEU and AUDIO revealed comparatively little here. Vowel coverage helps only when the answer's vowels are still in doubt.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against BANAL, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
SALET SALET 18
CRANE CRANE 47
SLATE SLATE 59
TARSE TARSE 68
RAISE RAISE 93
STARE STARE 132
TRACE TRACE 133
ARISE ARISE 160
ADIEU ADIEU 289
AUDIO AUDIO 443

“Answers still possible” counts the words in the site's 2,384-word working answer pool whose feedback would match that opener exactly. This is pattern arithmetic, not a simulation. A smaller number means the opener left fewer possible answers after the first guess. It does not describe later turns.

Contributed player ratings

Not enough contributed games to publish player figures for this puzzle. Per-puzzle numbers appear only after at least 10 opt-in games arrive. See how the Observatory collects and publishes player data →

What did you get?

Tap your result to compare it with contributed games. Your choice stays in this browser and is not sent anywhere.

1 Suppressed
2 Suppressed
3 12
4 10
5 Suppressed
6 Suppressed
X Suppressed

The bars pool all 40 contributed games across every completed puzzle. The Observatory does not publish per-puzzle guess distributions below its sample threshold, so this is the broadest available comparison. “Suppressed” marks a low-count cell.

Solver replay

One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to BANAL.

The solver reaches the answer in 3 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for January 6, 2022?
The Wordle answer for January 6, 2022 (puzzle #201) was BANAL.
What does BANAL mean?
BANAL: Common in a boring way, to the point of being predictable; containing nothing new or fresh.
Why was Wordle #201 tricky?
BANAL is rated tricky for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: uncommon in general English, a repeated letter.

Keep solving and playing