Wordle #252 hints & answer for February 26, 2022
· Saturday
This page always keeps Wordle #252 for February 26, 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 #252
What kind of word
Wiktionary lists it as a verb.
What it means
“To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to accidentally pour.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.
Fill the gap
“I _____ some sticky juice on the kitchen floor.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentence selected from Wiktionary, with the answer removed.
Vowels and repeats
One vowel. One letter appears twice.
How it ends
Ends in L.
Reveal the answer and explanation
The answer to Wordle #252 was
SPILL: To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to accidentally pour.
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 difficult: a repeated letter, 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.
How difficult was it for the solver?
Solver pressure: 94/100 (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.
This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →
Wordle #252, measured
This section compares SPILL'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, SPILL measured harder for the solver than about 94% of all 1,952 recorded answers to date. Its rating is hard for the solver. It repeats L; the example solver route takes four turns.
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
SLATE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 18 of the 2,384 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 275 candidates, about 15 times as many. TRACE and CRANE came back all gray. None of their letters appear in SPILL. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| SLATE | SLATE | 18 |
| SALET | SALET | 25 |
| ARISE | ARISE | 30 |
| RAISE | RAISE | 30 |
| STARE | STARE | 70 |
| TARSE | TARSE | 88 |
| ADIEU | ADIEU | 105 |
| TRACE | TRACE | 256 |
| CRANE | CRANE | 274 |
| 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 SPILL → It shows which guesses reduced the candidate pool on each turn.
Solver replay
One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to SPILL.
The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.
Common questions
- What was the Wordle answer for February 26, 2022?
- The Wordle answer for February 26, 2022 (puzzle #252) was SPILL.
- What does SPILL mean?
- SPILL: To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to accidentally pour.
- Why was Wordle #252 tricky?
- SPILL is rated tricky for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter, only one vowel.