Wordle #331 Answer
May 16, 2022 · Monday
The answer to Wordle #331 was
DELVE: To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
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, uncommon letters.
How difficult was it for the solver?
In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #331 scores 53/100 for solver difficulty (middle of the pack).
This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →
Wordle #331, measured
This section compares DELVE'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, DELVE measured harder for the solver than about 53% of all 1,906 recorded answers to date. Its rating is middle of the pack. It repeats E; 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
SALET left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 16 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, TRACE left 108 candidates, about 7 times as many.
| Opener | First-guess feedback | Answers still possible |
|---|---|---|
| SALET | SALET | 16 |
| SLATE | SLATE | 21 |
| AUDIO | AUDIO | 31 |
| ADIEU | ADIEU | 34 |
| ARISE | ARISE | 62 |
| RAISE | RAISE | 62 |
| STARE | STARE | 90 |
| TARSE | TARSE | 90 |
| CRANE | CRANE | 105 |
| TRACE | TRACE | 108 |
“Answers still possible” counts the words in the site's 2,374-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 DELVE → It shows which guesses reduced the candidate pool on each turn.
Solver replay
One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to DELVE.
The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.
Common questions
- What was the Wordle answer for May 16, 2022?
- The Wordle answer for May 16, 2022 (puzzle #331) was DELVE.
- What does DELVE mean?
- DELVE: To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
- Why was Wordle #331 tricky?
- DELVE is rated tricky for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter, uncommon letters.