Today’s ‘Wordle’ #364 Hint And Answer: Saturday, June 18th

This has been a very long week. I’ve been quite sick all week with COVID-19 which, in my case, has been like a very bad cold with lots of lethargy and headaches. Everyone seems to be getting it these days but it’s much less deadly than before, thank the gods.

In any case, we’re one day away from Wordle’s birthday and two days away from mine. Tomorrow is also Father’s Day so happy Father’s Day in advance to all you dads out there!

Alright, on we go . . . .

How To Play Wordle

Wordle is a pretty straightforward game. First, head to the game’s homepage at the New York Times (it’s not an app on the App Store or Google Play, though there are many imitators).

Wordle is free-to-play and only has minimalistic ads for the NYTs other games, most of which sit behind the paywall but are well worth your money if you enjoy puzzles.

You’ll find six rows of five boxes. These represent your six guesses. Type in a word and hit ‘Enter’ and any correct letters you get will show up in colored boxes: Green if it’s in the right spot, yellow if it’s in the wrong spot. If a box is grey that means the letter is not in the solution. Through process of elimination, determine the answer by the sixth guess.

Here are some helpful links:

Today’s Wordle #364 Hint & Answer

There be spoilers ahead, ye landlubbers! Aaarrgh! Shiver me timbers! Spoilers!

But first, a hint: A chocolate tree.

And the answer is . . . .

Now that is not an easy word!

My first guess was also not ideal. As is so often the case, crane would have been better, though still left me with plenty of question marks. I followed up blade (which left me with 179 possible solutions) with croak and this left me with just one remaining solution according to Wordle Bot after the fact. I didn’t know it at the time, and I admit I was quite puzzled.

For a long time I tried to figure out what the word was assuming the ‘O’ was in the second space. CO_A_ seemed like a logical approach but nothing fit. The only word I could feasibly come up with was CONAN and that’s a proper name (of a famous barbarian). When I finally though of cacao I thought it would be wrong but might get me another letter or two. (I knew it couldn’t be cocoa because of where the ‘A’ was).

I was definitely surprised when it turned out to be the answer! Cacao is such a tricky word because it’s really very foreign sounding and the spelling goes against how we spell most words in English. It’s also very similar to cocoa—as in hot cocoa, but also as in the bean that comes from a cacao tree. And really, cacao is just the unprocessed version, whereas cocoa is the processed version of said plant. So it’s all a bit confusing in terms of spelling and pronunciation.

But hey, a win is a win. Have a lovely Saturday, folks!