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Having solved a few hundred Wordle puzzles, we’ve observed one thing: most answers are either obscure words with simple letter combinations or common words with difficult letter combinations. On lucky days you might get a common word with a simple letter combination, but today is not one of those days. The answer to today’s Wordle puzzle falls in the latter category — it’s in common usage but the letter arrangement might not occur to you before you run out of attempts.
To help, we’ll share a few hints that should help you crack the code in fewer tries, and we’ll also reveal the full answer in the second section, so you can skip ahead if you prefer to cut to the chase. The word you’re looking for can be a noun, verb, or adjective describing a posture of crouching low to the ground. It’s a common exercise position targeted at building the glutes and calf muscles.
It has two vowels, U and A, in successive positions as the third and fourth letters, and no letters are repeated. The word rhymes with “blot,” and you could replace its last letter with D to form a term for a military team or your close friends’ circle. It also contains the letter S, but we’ll leave its exact position a mystery so we don’t ruin the challenge of the game. However, going by the NYT’s modified Wordle rules, you can rule out the possibility that it’s the last letter.
You’d have to go really low to get the answer
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Still unsure? The solution you seek is “squat.” The word is most popular as the term for the exercise routine of repeating deep couches, but it has other meanings you may not be very familiar with. For example, the British use the word to describe an empty house or building that is occupied by bootleggers or freeloaders, per Merriam-Webster. It’s also slang for nothing — if you say someone doesn’t know squat about football, that means they have no clue about the sport.
The same source helps us learn the origins of the word — “squat” traces back to Middle English “squatten” and Middle French (Picard dialect) “esquatir” or “escuater,” meaning to crush or crouch in hiding. It also has roots in Vulgar Latin “coactire,” which means to squeeze, an alteration of “coactare,” or to compress, which is the same word from which “cache” is derived, interestingly.
Like yesterday’s puzzle, we solved Wordle #622 in only three tries, so we officially have a streak going. We chose the word “poise” as a starting guess — mostly because it contains three vowels, some of which are the most popular in Wordle answers. It only turned one tile yellow, but it narrowed down possible answer words to 128. We picked the next word, gaunt, because it contained both remaining vowels, and it colored three more tiles. The answer was evident by then. If you’re keen on improving your Wordle gameplay, we have a guide to choosing strategic starter words — it contains some tips that help us turn our tiles green every time.
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Luz Mongold