Wordle puzzle
Wordle puzzle

NEW YORK — The New York Times' Wordle closed out the workweek with a tricky one on Friday. Puzzle No. 1966 uses ordinary letters, but the answer is an informal word many players rarely use, and that cost some of them a streak.

The daily word game gives players six attempts to find a hidden five-letter word and resets at midnight local time. Wordle No. 1966 is the puzzle for Nov. 6, 2026.

If you want to solve it yourself, stop reading here. The hints come first and the full answer is further down.

Why today's puzzle is tricky

Several puzzle trackers flagged Friday's word as a vocabulary test rather than a spelling challenge. The Sunday Guardian noted the letter combination is fairly straightforward, but the answer itself is not common in everyday conversation.

Technobezz described the puzzle as a blunt little word that tests players' vocabulary confidence.

Hints for Wordle No. 1966

These clues go from gentlest to most revealing.

The first hint is the type of word. Today's answer is a noun. It is an informal English noun.

The second hint covers the letters. The answer has one vowel and no repeating letters. The only vowel is E.

The third hint is about feel. Think of how you react when something falls far below your standards.

The fourth hint is about how the word is used. It is a dismissive word someone might use for a terrible movie, a badly made product or low-quality material.

The fifth hint gives the edges. The word starts with D and ends with K.

The final hint is a plain definition. The word means trash or rubbish.

Strategy tips

On a day like this, players benefit from opening words packed with common consonants. Since the answer has only one vowel, guesses loaded with vowels tell you little once you have found the E.

The ending is the key pattern. The single vowel and the "CK" ending make Friday's answer a different kind of challenge. Once players confirm a C or K near the end, it helps to test the "-ECK" pattern, which shows up in words such as CHECK, WRECK and FLECK.

The letters themselves are not unusual. Most of them are common, and K is the least frequent of the set. The hard part is recognizing the word, not finding the letters.

Today's Wordle answer

Spoiler warning: the solution follows.

The answer to Wordle No. 1966 on Nov. 6, 2026, is DRECK.

DRECK is an informal noun for trash, rubbish or anything of very poor quality. It came into English from Yiddish. People often use it to dismiss a disappointing film, a cheap product or anything they consider worthless.

The opening letter is fairly common in the game's history. Of the 1,966 Wordle answers so far, 91 have started with the letter D.

Recent Wordle answers

Reviewing recent solutions can help players avoid repeat guesses. Recent answers were PARCH on Nov. 5, NUTTY on Nov. 4, POUCH on Nov. 3 and SCOOT on Nov. 2.

Friday's answer extends a week of words with only one vowel. PARCH, NUTTY and POUCH also each contained a single vowel, which made consonant-heavy strategies especially useful this week.

How Wordle works

Players get six tries to guess a hidden five-letter word. After each guess, the tiles change color: green means the letter is correct and in the right spot, yellow means the letter is in the word but in the wrong position, and gray means the letter is not in the word.

A new puzzle comes out at midnight in each player's time zone. The game is available on The New York Times Games website and in the NYT Games app.

Software engineer Josh Wardle created Wordle, and The New York Times bought it in 2022. It remains one of the most popular daily word puzzles online.

Wordle No. 1967 arrives Saturday.