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Today’s Wordle starts with V and ends with N and has two vowels (spoiler: they are different).
This word refers to a person who does not eat any food derived from animals. It can also refer to a lifestyle that excludes animal products.
The NYT Wordle answer for February 11, 2026, is VEGAN, a word that is as popular in modern diets as it is rare in Wordle openers.
NYT Wordle for February 11 (Wednesday) puts your knowledge of low-frequency letters to the test. While the vowels are common enough, it would be a challenge if your puzzle-solving strategy usually involves ‘meatier’ consonants. It is a fresh, plant-based challenge that starts with one of the rarest letters in the alphabet.
If you’ve been trying to ‘turn over a new leaf’ with your health, you might already have this solution on your plate! Ready to go green to get the gold? Let’s break down the latest Wordle hints and fun facts and answer with an expert walkthrough on how I, as a seasoned player, navigated today’s garden of possibilities.
Before I give you more spoilers, here is how you can crack the NYT daily puzzle ourself.
1. This word is often found on restaurant menus next to a green leaf icon.
2. It is a more restrictive version of a ‘vegetarian.’ It’s a lifestyle choice.
3. If you’ve ever ordered a burger made entirely of plants or skipped the cream in your coffee, you’re already halfway to solving this.
I solved Wordle #1698 by quickly pivoting once I realized my usual vowel-heavy strategy wasn't hitting the right consonants.
First Guess: ADIEU- I stuck with a classic. Today, it was moderately helpful, lighting up the 'A' and 'E' in yellow. It told me the word had the right vowels, but they were in the wrong places.
Second Guess: CLEAN I wanted to test the placement of 'E' and 'A' while checking common ending consonants. This was a great move. The 'A' and 'N' turned green at the end of the word (_ _ _ A N). This gave me the word structure, but the first three letters were a mystery.
Third Guess: BEGAN With only two slots left, 'BEGAN' seemed like the most statistically likely choice. It used common letters and fit the _ _ _ A N pattern perfectly. To my surprise, the 'B' was gray, but ‘E’ and ‘G’ turned green. This left me with a very short list of possibilities.
Mistakes to Avoid: As a seasoned player who has seen many streaks die in the garden, my biggest piece of advice for Puzzle #1698 is to watch out for the ending trap. When you lock in a common suffix like _E A N, your brain naturally screams for high-frequency words like BEGAN or PECAN. Don't let your Wordle autopilot take over.
If you've already ruled out the common consonants, stop trying to make sensible words work and start looking at the outliers. Wordle is famous for using letters like ‘V’, ‘X’, and ‘Z’ to break a player’s rhythm. If you keep guessing words with ‘R’, ‘S’, or ‘T’ just because they are safer, you will burn through your six attempts before you even realize you’re missing the most important ingredient.
Finally, avoid the single vowel assumption. Many people find one vowel and assume they are done. Today’s word is a vowel sandwich, requiring both an ‘E’ and an ‘A’ to function. If you’re stuck with a gray board, try a vowel dump word like ADIEU to see if you're missing a second sound. Discipline and a willingness to think ‘outside the farm’ are your best tools today.
Final Logic: After ruling out 'B', 'P', and 'R', I looked at the remaining keyboard. 'V' stood out. Combined with the green 'E-G-A-N', it spelled out a word that is everywhere in 2026.
However, if you want to know the history of this word and how this trend even caught on, read on! You will find the big solution reveal along with details on who coined this term and why.
The answer to Wordle #1698 is VEGAN.
The word VEGAN was actually coined in November 1944. A British woodworker named Donald Watson founded this word to describe vegetarians who avoided dairy and eggs. He took the first three and last two letters of ‘vegetarian’ to create the word, marking the ‘beginning and the end of vegetarianism.’
At the time, 40% of Britain’s dairy cows had tuberculosis, and Watson claimed the vegan lifestyle protected people from such tainted food. He even had to teach people how to say it, writing in his newsletter (Vegan Society) that it was ‘Veegan, not Veejan.’ From just 25 subscribers in his first newsletter to millions of followers today, Watson’s ‘V-word’ has certainly grown some deep roots!
Since then, the movement has exploded. However, it’s not a new concept, maybe just a glorified one. The practice of avoiding animal products is ancient. Greek philosopher Pythagoras promoted a meatless diet as far back as 500 BCE, and Eastern religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism have advocated for non-violence toward animals for millennia. In the West, strict groups like the 18th-century Ephrata Cloister pushed for vegetarianism alongside other ‘pure’ lifestyle choices.
Today’s puzzle was a classic example of letter rarity bias. We often fail to see words like VEGAN because we don't expect the game to start with such a difficult letter. However, the true difficulty wasn't the word itself, which we see on every street corner, but our own hesitation to use the ‘V’ key. It was a refreshing puzzle that required a bit of a lifestyle shift in our guessing strategy.
Come back tomorrow for more Wordle hints, tips, and my daily walkthrough!
Also Read: Today’s Quordle Hints and Answers for Feb 11, 2026
