Wordle Today #417 Answer, Hint And Clues, Wednesday August 10th

Today is the first day of school ‘round these parts. My 15-year-old is starting 10th grade at a brand new school, so that’s a little nerve-wracking for everyone but especially for her. I think it’ll be a good change, personally. My son is starting 7th grade, which is the same grade I was when we first moved here.

I keep encouraging both of them to do their daily Wordles. It’s not much, but any little thing we can do to keep our wits sharp is important and worthwhile. Reading, going out in nature, playing boardgames, having conversations with friends—all of these are important pieces of that puzzle. It’s easy to just coast on by on auto-pilot, though.

So Wordle is a nudge, if nothing more, to remind us that puzzle-solving is a good thing, that waking our brains up for even a moment is crucial to our wellbeing as humans in a world that often asks us to zone out or distracts us with a parade of useless trivia and bad news.

With all that said, let’s take a look at today’s Wordle, shall we?

Today’s Wordle #417 Answer, Hint & Clue

Spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned.

The Hint: Not a good trait in a new romantic partner.

The Clue: You should probably use the best Wordle starting word this time.

The Answer:

This should not have taken me five guesses, but I was distracted. Sound actually narrowed my possible options down to just 66.

Better still, crane—the best starting word, but hey why not use it for #2?—slimmed things down to just two choices. My third guess was neither of these.

Chink, as in a ‘chink in one’s armor’, is apparently not even a Wordle answer which is weird, though as I type this I recall that it’s also used as an anti-Chinese slur. Since I’m a huge nerd for all things Medieval, including knights in chain-mail, I think of ‘chink’ in the armor (or proverbial) sense of the word. But I suspect it’s left out of the list because of its less savory use.

I can’t honestly tell you why my next guess was clint. I figured ‘C’ probably had to precede ‘L’ since ‘H’ was out of the picture and clint just popped into my head. The only meaning I know for the word is the name, Clint (as in Clint Eastwood) and since proper nouns are verboten in Wordle, that makes this a genuinely terrible guess.

In fact, after crane only two possible guesses remained: clink or cling and since I eliminated the ‘K’ I should have at least had cling by Guess #4. Alas, I messed up. At least I got it by #5 and didn’t whiff the whole thing. I can cling to that knowledge, however lame it may be.

Best of luck, dearest Wordlers! Have a wonderful Wordle Wednesday!