The answer to Wordle #480 was

IONIC: of, relating to, or containing ions

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

Word difficulty: Moderate

Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #480 scores 90/100 for solver difficulty (hard for the solver).

18 Possible answers after CRANE
229 Possible answers after SLATE
119 Possible answers after ADIEU
4 Words in the _ONIC family
4 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 #480, measured

This section compares IONIC'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

90/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, IONIC measured harder for the solver than about 90% of all 1,906 recorded answers to date. Its rating is hard for the solver. It repeats I; 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

CRANE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 18 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, TARSE left 235 candidates, about 13 times as many. SALET, SLATE, STARE and TARSE came back all gray. None of their letters appear in IONIC.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against IONIC, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
CRANE CRANE 18
AUDIO AUDIO 24
TRACE TRACE 50
ARISE ARISE 113
RAISE RAISE 113
ADIEU ADIEU 119
SALET SALET 229
SLATE SLATE 229
STARE STARE 235
TARSE TARSE 235

“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 →

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 Suppressed
4 Suppressed
5 Suppressed
6 Suppressed
X Suppressed

The bars pool all 26 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 IONIC.

The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for October 12, 2022?
The Wordle answer for October 12, 2022 (puzzle #480) was IONIC.
What does IONIC mean?
IONIC: of, relating to, or containing ions
Why was Wordle #480 tricky?
IONIC is rated moderate for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter.

Keep solving and playing