Welcome to The Wordle Review. Be warned: This article contains spoilers for today’s puzzle. Solve Wordle first, or scroll at your own risk.
This month’s featured artist is Mark Pernice. You can read more about them here.
★★★
Wordle 639 4/6
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I love word puzzles and word games. I play Wordle every day, as well as Spelling Bee and the daily crossword. They are satisfying because they are relaxing and a bit challenging, but not so challenging that you feel incompetent. When I have a good puzzle day, I feel like it’s one more day that I’ve held on to my mental acuity.
People always ask about my strategy, but I don’t put that much thought into my approach in that so much is predicated on the first word. If you don’t get lucky, you’re facing a difficult solve. I trust my instincts and use a different starting word each time — one with at least two vowels and interesting consonants, like K or V. Sometimes, I get really lucky and get three or four out of the five letters, but it’s mostly a crapshoot.
Anyway, today, I started with BAKER. Why? I have no idea. Only one letter was correct but in the wrong place. My second word was, in retrospect, a bit ridiculous, but I went with CHIVE. Why? I have no idea! That is simply how the spirit moved me. This was a bit more fruitful in that I had two letters correct, and in the right places. It also narrowed the possibilities for the correct answer. As an aside, chives are delicious. I enjoy alliums, and sadly allium can never be a Wordle answer.
At this point, I was absurdly confident I knew the correct word and pressed the keys with a particular flourish to type in STOVE, but alas, I was wrong. Still, all was not lost. I now had the last three letters of the answer in the right place. I hate going over four guesses. Once I get to five or six guesses, my confidence in my mental acuity wanes. The game takes something of a dark turn as the pressure mounts, especially if I need that sixth try because if I don’t guess correctly, the game is lost and so is my self-esteem. All this to say, I was feeling mighty tense about my fourth attempt. Given my previous guesses, it could only be so many words. In fact, it could only be one word that wasn’t completely obscure. When you choose words wisely, even if they’re wrong, they can still light the way to the promised land.
The good news is that I guessed correctly. The bad news is that the correct answer was quite utilitarian, and so rarely used in the singular. I was discombobulated but also moderately triumphant and that is, I suppose, a fine state of affairs. I’ll give this puzzle three out of five stars.
Today’s word is GLOVE. It’s a noun, and according to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, it refers to a covering for the hand with separate pockets for each finger.
Please play today’s Wordle before you proceed to today’s statistics, which may include spoilers.
Today’s Statistics
This word is moderately challenging because of uncertainty, but a strategy can help.
The word contains a common letter pattern with five or six possible answers. Getting the answer in six guesses requires strategic choices at every guess.
Wordle Wrap-Up
The Wordle Wrap-Up can now be found in this column each week on Monday. Here is your reminder of the answers last week.
Wordle 632 Monday, March 13: BLAME
Wordle 633 Tuesday, March 14: SURLY
Wordle 634 Wednesday, March 15: SWEEP
Wordle 635 Thursday, March 16: CIDER
Wordle 636 Friday, March 17: MEALY
Wordle 637 Saturday, March 18: YACHT
Wordle 638 Sunday, March 19: CREDO
Featured Artist
Mark Pernice is an award-winning illustrator, art director and designer. He runs the multidisciplinary design studio OOO, alongside his creative directing partner, Elana Schlenker. Pernice injects his personality and style into brand illustrations using a variety of details, textures and messages. “I’m not that interested in making obvious illustrations, and I don’t want to shoehorn in overused visual iconography unless there’s a bit of a fun twist or mystery,” he said in an interview with It’s Nice That.
Further Reading
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