Today’s Wordle #605 Hint, Clues And Answer For Tuesday, February 14th

Happy Valentine’s Day, Wordlers! It’s a day for lovers, chocolate, wine, fancy dinners and deep pockets. Or, if you’re like me and happily single, a day to save money (though I might splurge on dinner for me, myself and I).

The day itself is ostensibly a celebration of Saint Valentine, pictured below:

It’s kind of funny that a day celebrating romance would be based on a religious figure, but then again most holidays are tied to religion, and to feast or harvest days, such as the Lupercalia which was celebrated on the ides of February, or February 15th. Lupercalia was, perhaps not surprisingly, a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, and to Rome’s founders Romulus and Remus.

The festival included sacrificing a goat for fertility at the cave where Romulus and Remus were said to be raised by wolves. The priests would dip the goat’s hides in strips into sacrificial blood and then go and gently slap women and crop fields with the bloody hide. This was believed to increase fertility and crop yields. The women would then place their names in a giant urn and later, bachelors would draw names and be paired with the women for the following year (which could lead to marriage). How romantic!

This tradition evolved and was ultimately Christianized into what we now call Saint Valentine’s Day.

As for who Saint Valentine actually was . . . that’s a bit trickier to parse out. The Catholic Church recognizes three different Valentines, all of whom were martyred at one point or another.

One of these Valentines was a third century Roman priest who defied Emperor Clauduis II’s decree that no young men should be allowed to legally wed. He carried out marriages in secret—until he was caught and put to death.

Another was Saint Valentine of Terni. Ironically, Claudius II beheaded this Valentine as well. Another legend suggests that Valentine helped persecuted Christians escape Rome. Once imprisoned, Valentine fell in love with a woman (it’s suggested she may have been the jailor’s daughter) and sent her a letter signed “From your Valentine” which kicked off the whole business.

Whatever the case, Valentine had become one of the most famous and beloved saints in England and France by the Middle Ages. We often think of Valentine’s Day as some conspiracy by the florists, chocolatiers and card-makers to get us to spend money (much like the toy companies have propped up Christmas!) but celebrating Saint Valentine obviously goes way, way back.

Alright, let’s do this Wordle!

How To Solve Today’s Wordle

The Hint: A smaller body of water connected to an ocean.

The Clue: This Wordle has more consonants than vowels.

The Answer (Spoilers):

.

.

.

Ouch. This was a tricky one! My opening guess, beach, which is where I’d like to be on Valentine’s Day, was pretty terrible, leaving me with a whopping 498 possibilities. Point slashed this way, way down to just 8, but I realized that from here I had a lot of words ending in ound. I decided to just eliminate one and go from there, but in retrospect a word like drums would have been better than found.

At this point I knew I needed to narrow things down more. I just didn’t have enough guesses left. Worse eliminated wound and round and gave me the ‘S’ for sound.

I got it in 5, which is a -1 in my scoring. I lost to Wordle Bot, who got this one in three, so that’s another -1 for a grand total of -2. Lame! I’ve struck out in Wordle and in love this year, folks. Sigh.

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