Today’s Wordle #1658 Hints And Answer For Friday, January 2

It’s the first Friday of 2026 and the first 2XP Friday of 2026 for Competitive Wordlers. New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day were both grand successes, and I hope all you fine Wordlers had fun. Now it’s off the races! Let’s solve today’s Wordle!

Looking for Thursday’s Wordle? Check out our guide right here.

Today’s Bonus Wordle

Now that we can create our own custom Wordles, I’m including a bonus Wordle with each daily Wordle guide. These can be 4 to 7 letters long. Hopefully this is a fun extra challenge. Click the link below to play the Wordle I hand-crafted for you.

• Today’s Bonus Custom Wordle.
• This custom Wordle is 6 letters long.
• The hint: Something you say over and over again.
• The clue: This Wordle has a double letter.

Yesterday’s bonus Wordle answer was: FUTURE

How To Solve Today’s Wordle

How To Play Wordle

Wordle is a daily word puzzle game where your goal is to guess a hidden five-letter word in six tries or fewer. After each guess, the game gives feedback to help you get closer to the answer:

• Green: The letter is in the word and in the correct spot.
• Yellow: The letter is in the word, but in the wrong spot.
• Gray: The letter is not in the word at all.

Use these clues to narrow down your guesses. Every day brings a new word, and everyone around the world is trying to solve the same puzzle. Some Wordlers also play Competitive Wordle against friends, family, the Wordle Bot or even against me, your humble narrator. See rules for Competitive Wordle toward the end of this post.

Today’s Wordle Hints And Answer

• Wordle Bot’s Starting Word: SLATE
• My Starting Word Today: CLEAN (368 words remaining)
• The Hint: You’ll need it for a conviction to stick.
• The Clue: This Wordle has a double letter.

Okay, spoilers below! The answer is coming!

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The Answer:

Wordle Bot Analysis

Every day I check Wordle Bot to help analyze my guessing game. You can check your Wordle score with Wordle Bot right here.

CLEAN is normally a very strong opening guess, but today it was unlucky, leaving me with 368 words and all grey boxes. STORY slashed that down to 11, which isn’t bad, and GROUP cut that number down to just 2. PROOF was the first thing I came up with and I plugged it in. Lucky for me, that was the Wordle!

Competitive Wordle Score

Well, it’s always kind of disappointing to get a tie on 4 on 2XP Friday because 0 x2 is still 0. The Bot and I’s January scores remain:

Erik: 0 points

Wordle Bot: 0 points

How To Play Competitive Wordle

• Guessing in 1 is worth 3 points; guessing in 2 is worth 2 points; guessing in 3 is worth 1 point; guessing in 4 is worth 0 points; guessing in 5 is -1 points; guessing in 6 is -2 points and missing the Wordle is -3 points.
• If you beat your opponent you get 1 point. If you tie, you get 0 points. And if you lose to your opponent, you get -1 point. Add it up to get your score. Keep a daily running score or just play for a new score each day.
• Fridays are 2XP, meaning you double your points—positive or negative.
• You can keep a running tally or just play day-by-day. Enjoy!

Today’s Wordle Etymology

The word proof comes from Middle English prove, via Old French preuve (“test, evidence”), from the verb prover (“to test, try”). This traces back to Latin probare, meaning “to test, approve, or demonstrate,” from probus (“good, honest”). At its root, proof is about testing something to show it is sound or true.

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