By FiveLetterWords · Guide updated . The puzzle date is shown separately.

This page always keeps Wordle #213 for January 18, 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 #213

What kind of word

Wiktionary lists it as an adjective, and also as a noun.

What it means

“An agent or substitute authorized to act for another person.”

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.

How it ends

Ends in Y.

The middle letter

The middle letter is O.

How it starts

Begins with P.

Reveal the answer and explanation

The answer to Wordle #213 was

PROXY: Used as a proxy or acting as a proxy.

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.

Word difficulty: Tricky

Why it may be difficult: uncommon letters, only one vowel.

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.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

Solver pressure: 99/100 (hard for the solver). This is a percentile among past puzzles under the same strategy: 0 is easiest and 100 is hardest for the solver.

53 Possible answers after CRANE
230 Possible answers after SLATE
166 Possible answers after ADIEU
5 Guesses in the solver replay

This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →

Wordle #213, measured

This section compares PROXY'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

99/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, PROXY measured harder for the solver than about 99% of all 1,952 recorded answers to date. Its rating is hard for the solver. The example solver route takes 5 turns; CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU leave a large group.

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 49 of the 2,384 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 286 candidates, about 6 times as many. ADIEU, SALET and SLATE came back all gray. None of their letters appear in PROXY. The vowel-heavy probes ADIEU and AUDIO revealed comparatively little here. Vowel coverage helps only when the answer's vowels are still in doubt.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against PROXY, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
ARISE ARISE 49
TRACE TRACE 50
CRANE CRANE 53
TARSE TARSE 95
STARE STARE 102
RAISE RAISE 103
ADIEU ADIEU 166
SALET SALET 230
SLATE SLATE 230
AUDIO AUDIO 286

“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 →

What did you get?

Tap your result to compare it with contributed games. Your choice stays in this browser and is not sent anywhere.

1 Suppressed
2 Suppressed
3 12
4 10
5 Suppressed
6 Suppressed
X Suppressed

The bars pool all 40 contributed games across every completed puzzle. The Observatory does not publish per-puzzle guess distributions below its sample threshold, so this is the broadest available comparison. “Suppressed” marks a low-count cell.

Solver replay

One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to PROXY.

The solver reaches the answer in 5 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for January 18, 2022?
The Wordle answer for January 18, 2022 (puzzle #213) was PROXY.
What does PROXY mean?
PROXY: Used as a proxy or acting as a proxy.
Why was Wordle #213 tricky?
PROXY is rated tricky for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: uncommon letters, only one vowel.

Keep solving and playing