Another week down, and another seven Wordles in the can. I hope you all preserved your streaks — when the world is in such a grim state, it’s OK to celebrate the tiniest wins. (And if one Wordle a day isn’t quite enough to keep you from doomscrolling, you can try one of the ever-growing number of clones and variations that have sprung up since the original went mega-viral.)
As the days can tend to blur together In These Times, let’s have a look back at the week in Wordle answers, ranked in reverse order of obscurity: the highs, the lows, the bewildered Americans. If nothing else, let this list serve as a reminder that none of these words will be the answer you’re looking for any time soon.
1. OTHER (Monday Feb. 21)
Extremely normal word. So normal, in fact, that I was a little taken aback when it turned out to be the answer. When you’re trying to pull random words from the depths of your brain to solve a puzzle, sometimes the ones you use most IRL are the last ones to occur to you.
2. SPILL (Saturday Feb. 26)
Whether it’s figurative piping hot tea or the literal kind, this is a pretty common one. And especially in the gossipy, imperative sense, it’s arguably the only word in this week’s list that also works as a full sentence. (Don’t @ me, other editors.)
3. CHANT (Sunday Feb. 27)
Protesting injustice? You’ve gotta have a chant. Enjoying the well-ventilated crowd vibe of a stadium full of sports fans? Have a chant! Demanding that a friend down their entire beer in a matter of seconds? You guessed it — it’s chantin’ time. It might not be a word that you actually use every day, but it’s one of the most normal things in the world for a big group of people to do. Gets your point across very efficiently. Love it.
4. VIVID (Friday Feb. 25)
This nearly slipped to number 5 on this list, before I remembered that we’ve all been having some pretty VIVID pandemic dreams for the last couple of years. (I should note, however, that this one nearly evaded me — people freaked out the first time a Wordle solution featured repeated letters, and while I was totally down with the letter I appearing twice, the ol’ double-double didn’t even occur to me as a possibility until my sixth guess.)
5. THORN (Tuesday Feb. 22)
Another one you might not use every day, unless you’re super into your rose garden (or sappy power ballads). But interestingly, it’s one of three key words in this apparently foolproof way to beat Wordle every single time.
All the tips and tricks you could need to succeed at ‘Wordle’
6. TROVE (Wednesday Feb. 23)
One of those words that tends to be used in a specific context — i.e. “treasure trove” — and doesn’t necessarily tend to come up in everyday conversation. The “trove” part of that phrase is thought to have come from the French word “trouvé”, the past form of the verb for “find”, and the word’s now split off from that contextual usage to have a similar meaning when used on its own. But unless you had some lucky early guesses, that T?O?E pattern was a doozy — and V is not a letter you just throw in on a whim.
7. BLOKE (Thursday Feb. 24)
Here’s a fun fact: Before most of the U.S. has even gone to bed on any given day, I’ve usually solved the next day’s Wordle already. This is because I live in Australia, and the Wordle puzzle refreshes at midnight local time. (This is why when the great post-NYT answer glitch happened a few weeks ago, I had a head start on my colleagues, and spent a little time working out what had happened so I could write an explainer.) And when BLOKE turned up last Thursday in those five little green squares — after I ignored it as a likely answer two lucky guesses in, because surely the Times would have nixed it alongside other British-English words, like the UK spelling of FIBRE — I had a little cackle to myself imagining thousands of annoyed Americans “X-ing out” the following day.
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It’s worth noting that Wordle creator Josh Wardle was born in Wales, and his original word list is probably peppered with Britishisms that may or may not survive the Times‘ ongoing editing-out of “obscure” words. For Wardle, for me, and for thousands of players across the UK, Australia and beyond, this word is very normal. But for Americans, like fruit juice without added corn syrup or paying a reasonable amount for basic medical care, BLOKE must have felt strange and alien. For that reason, and in tribute to your confusion, it has the dubious honour (yes, with a U!) of being the Least Normal Word of the week.
