Wordle #212 hints & answer for January 17, 2022
· Monday
This page always keeps Wordle #212 for January 17, 2022. Check that number against your game before opening a hint. The answer remains below a separate reveal.
Wordle changes at midnight in your local time zone. For the current local puzzle, use today’s hints. This dated page keeps the same puzzle when the day changes.
Our independent hints use the verified puzzle answer. Play the official game at The New York Times.
Hints for Wordle #212
What kind of word
Wiktionary lists it as a noun.
What it means
“The general area in which a person comes from or lives.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.
Fill the gap
“When are you coming back to the _____?”
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentence selected from Wiktionary, with the answer removed.
The middle letter
The middle letter is I.
Where the vowels sit
The vowels are the third and fifth letters.
Reveal the answer and explanation
The answer to Wordle #212 was
SHIRE: The people living in a shire (noun sense 1.1) considered collectively.
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.
Why it may be easier: five different letters, at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.
The word rating describes familiarity and letter features. The solver score below measures how a fixed strategy handles the puzzle; an unusual word can still be easy for that strategy.
How difficult was it for the solver?
Solver pressure: 9/100 (easier for the solver). This is a percentile among past puzzles under the same strategy: 0 is easiest and 100 is hardest for the solver.
This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →
Wordle #212, measured
This section compares SHIRE's solver-difficulty percentile, first-guess results for ten familiar openers, and opt-in player reports. Each number identifies its dataset.
Solver difficulty, as a percentile
This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, SHIRE measured harder for the solver than about 9% of all 1,952 recorded answers to date. Its rating is easier for the solver. CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU leave about 42 possible answers; it has a 3-word SH_RE family.
Solver pressure ranks the answer within the pool; it does not measure player performance. The opener table compares first-guess results, and the contributed ratings report player results.
CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU benchmark
ARISE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 2 of the 2,384 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 275 candidates, about 138 times as many. The vowel-heavy probes ADIEU and AUDIO revealed comparatively little here. Vowel coverage helps only when the answer's vowels are still in doubt.
| Opener | First-guess feedback | Answers still possible |
|---|---|---|
| ARISE | ARISE | 2 |
| RAISE | RAISE | 2 |
| STARE | STARE | 7 |
| TARSE | TARSE | 7 |
| SLATE | SLATE | 33 |
| SALET | SALET | 38 |
| CRANE | CRANE | 40 |
| TRACE | TRACE | 40 |
| ADIEU | ADIEU | 53 |
| AUDIO | AUDIO | 275 |
“Answers still possible” counts the words in the site's 2,384-word working answer pool whose feedback would match that opener exactly. This is pattern arithmetic, not a simulation. A smaller number means the opener left fewer possible answers after the first guess. It does not describe later turns.
Contributed player ratings
Not enough contributed games to publish player figures for this puzzle. Per-puzzle numbers appear only after at least 10 opt-in games arrive. See how the Observatory collects and publishes player data →
See the solver's route to SHIRE → It shows which guesses reduced the candidate pool on each turn.
Solver replay
One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to SHIRE.
The solver reaches the answer in 3 guesses.
Common questions
- What was the Wordle answer for January 17, 2022?
- The Wordle answer for January 17, 2022 (puzzle #212) was SHIRE.
- What does SHIRE mean?
- SHIRE: The people living in a shire (noun sense 1.1) considered collectively.
- Why was Wordle #212 tricky?
- SHIRE is rated easy for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be easier: five different letters, at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.