The game, which involves players from around the world, asks users to solve the puzzle by guessing a mystery five-letter word—in six tries or fewer.
The puzzle refreshes each day, with a new word that needs to be worked out from scratch. Wordle tries to help users stumble across the correct word by using a color-coded system; each correct letter in a guess turns green, or yellow if it’s in the word but is currently in the wrong place, or gray if it is incorrect.
The Origins of ‘Wordle’
Game inventor Josh Wardle, a software engineer, created the puzzle to play with his partner. He had first started working on it back in 2013, but returned to it during the pandemic and perfected it, naming the game with a riff on his own surname.
Wardle made the game public in October 2021 and it quickly became a global phenomenon—gaining more than 45 million users after starting out with just 90 active players. He said he only wanted to provide a single game each day because he has always been “wary of apps that want to consume all of your time.”
The software engineer sold his game to The New York Times for an undisclosed seven-figure sum in January 2022 and the puzzle moved over to the publication in February. The word game has become so popular that it has inspired a number of other daily games like the music-based Heardle, and the math-based Nerdle.
‘Wordle’ #541, Five Hints for Monday, December 12
Newsweek has put together five clues to help players baffled by today’s Wordle.
Each hint is more revealing than the last, so players should stop reading at the point they feel confident they may have guessed the right answer.
Hint #1: Today’s Wordle contains just one vowel.
Hint #2: One of the letters is used twice.
Hint #3: The word ends with the letter Y.
Hint #4: This word is something jobseekers must do in order to register their interest in a position.
Hint #5: Merriam-Webster has a string of definitions including “to bring into action… to lay or spread on…to make an appeal or request.”
‘Wordle’ #541 Answer for Monday, December 12
The answer to Wordle today is “APPLY.”
Wordle updates every day at 7 p.m. ET, at which point the next word will become available for players to try and solve.
But fans who need something to keep themselves busy while they wait for Wordle to refresh can have a go at these similar word-based puzzles.
