Wordle, the popular word puzzle game, offers players six attempts to deduce a five-letter word. Originally developed by software engineer Josh Wardle in 2021, it quickly gained tremendous popularity, leading to its acquisition by The New York Times in 2022.
To begin, players select a “starter word,” which helps in making educated guesses based on the feedback received. Correctly positioned letters appear in green, letters in the word but not in the right place are indicated in yellow, and gray signifies the absence of the letter in the word.
Tracy Bennett, The New York Times’ Wordle editor, expressed in an interview with TODAY.com in 2023 that there is no inherently bad word to start with. Based on an analysis of over 515 million games that year, “trace” was recommended as a strong starter choice by the New York Times’ Wordlebot.
While Wordle can be played for free, subscribing to New York Times Games or obtaining a full New York Times subscription provides access to saved statistics and detailed analyses.
For today’s Wordle puzzle #1561, the clues are as follows: the word is a noun and is onomatopoeic, containing a single vowel—’I’—without any repeating letters, and it begins with the letter ‘F’. Its definition refers to a condition where something fails to function correctly.
Today’s Wordle answer is “Fritz.” This term is defined in Webster’s New World College Dictionary as a condition where something is not operating correctly.