Today’s Wordle hints and answer — solution #699, Wednesday, May 19

Today’s Wordle answer is right in the 3-4 turn sweet spot that makes a good puzzle. According to the New York Times’ WordleBot( opens in new tab), the average player will complete Wordle # 699 in 3.7 turns, regardless as to whether you’re playing by easy or hard rules.

Each day, we will update this article with Wordle hints and tips to help you find today’s answer. And if the hints aren’t enough, we’ll even give you the answer, in case you’re really stuck or just haven’t had time to complete today’s puzzle. Plus, we are also including an analysis of yesterday’s puzzle, # 696, in case you’re reading this in a different time zone.

So be warned: spoilers lie ahead for game # 699. Only read on if you want to know today’s Wordle answer!

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER– HINTS TO HELP YOU SOLVE IT?

Our first tip is that you should use one of the best Wordle start words for every game you play. But if you want some more specific clues to today’s Wordle answer, then here you go:

It contains one of the five vowels. \*.
It has no repeated letters.
Three characters are amongst the ten most common Wordle letters.
\* By vowel, we mean A, E, I, O, U. There are other letters that are sometimes considered to be vowels, depending on how they are used.

Those hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today’s Wordle answer. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then skip down further for that.

Alright then, here’s a larger hint: Today’s Wordle answer might leave you floored.

WHAT DOES TODAY’S WORDLE START WITH?

The answer to Wordle # 699 starts with P, so combined with the hints above you should now have all the clues you need to get the answer and not break a Wordle streak.

OK, it’s now time to scroll down for the answer …

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER?

So, what is today’s Wordle answer for game # 699?

Drumroll, please– it’s PLANK.

Hello Wordlers. A frustrating one for me today as, despite having the first three letters confirmed by the third turn, it still took me five goes to finish.

My pick of the best Wordle start words was of limited help today. RATIO only revealed a single yellow ‘A’ and left a massive 213 possible answers remaining, according to WordleBot.

That’s partly down to limited common letters. ‘A’ may be the second most common character in Wordle, but ‘L’ is only sixth and ‘N’ is ninth. As for ‘P’ and ‘K’, they represent the 17th and 22nd most common respectively.

But other good starting words still performed better. LEAST, for example, would reduce the possible solutions to 31, while SLATE would have taken another ten off that. SLANT and LEANT take it down to just eight, and PLATE leaves only five.

My next move, as per usual with RATIO, was to find a word with ‘E’ in it, given it’s the most common letter in the game. I did that with SLAVE, and although the ‘E’ was ruled out, I did get greens for both ‘L’ and ‘A’.

That left just 15 possible answers, and you ‘d have thought I ‘d be on for a low-scoring win.

Unfortunately not. I tried PLAUD next which earned me a 70% luck score as the ‘P’ turned green, meaning the word had to begin PLA. This meant there were only two possible answers left, according to WordleBot.

Except I went and played a third that WordleBot hadn’t thought of: PLACK.

” Your guess eliminated one of the two remaining words, but, despite being a valid guess, PLACK isn’t one of the words I think will be a solution based on what I’ve learned from playing Wordle,” WordleBot writes.

In fact, the other word it was thinking of was PLAZA. Hmm.

Anyway, there was only one option left: I played PLANK and celebrated a five-turn win.

Hopefully you managed it faster than me today. See you tomorrow, Wordlers.

YESTERDAY’S WORDLE ANSWER?

Reading this in a later time zone? The Wordle answer for game # 696 was LATTE.

Hello Wordlers. Today’s puzzle shouldn’t cause too many problems if you played one of the best Wordle start words. Although it includes a dreaded double letter, all four of the characters used are in the top six most common in the game. Only ‘R’ and ‘O’ are missing.

I smoked out two of them on my very first turn – and in the right positions too. RATIO turned both the ‘A’ and ‘T’ green right off the bat for a strong start. That meant that there were only 32 possible answers remaining.

That doesn’t mean better answers weren’t available, of course. With so many common letters in play, there were plenty of good options to choose from. TRACE would have reduced the number of possible solutions down to 12, CARTE to nine and LEAST to five. SLATE, with its two greens and two yellows, left only one possibility.

I wanted to try the most common letter in the game – ‘E’ – while keeping my two correct letters in their current place. I did that by playing MATEY which did indeed turn the ‘E’ yellow, reducing the number of possible solutions to just four.

I’m kicking myself here, because my instinct was to play the correct answer: LATTE. But my aversion to double letters convinced me to keep looking, and eventually, I came across BATHE.

Playing that turned the ‘E’ green, so my mystery word was? AT? E. Now I was definitely going to play LATTE, and was rewarded with a four-turn win.

Interestingly, WordleBot points out that there was one other possible answer at this point: LATKE – a kind of potato pancake. Just as well that didn’t come to mind, or I ‘d have had to settle for a five-turn win.

Hopefully you did alright today, Wordlers. See you tomorrow for Wednesday’s Wordle.