The answer to Wordle #485 was

STEIN: A beer mug, usually made of ceramic or glass.

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

Word difficulty: Easy

Why it may be easier: five different letters, at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #485 scores 8/100 for solver difficulty (easier for the solver).

62 Possible answers after CRANE
11 Possible answers after SLATE
50 Possible answers after ADIEU
3 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 #485, measured

This section compares STEIN'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

8/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, STEIN measured harder for the solver than about 8% of all 1,907 recorded answers to date. Its rating is easier for the solver. CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU leave about 41 possible answers.

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 4 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, CRANE left 62 candidates, about 16 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.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against STEIN, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
ARISE ARISE 4
RAISE RAISE 4
STARE STARE 4
SALET SALET 11
SLATE SLATE 11
TARSE TARSE 23
AUDIO AUDIO 33
ADIEU ADIEU 50
TRACE TRACE 59
CRANE CRANE 62

“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 STEIN.

The solver reaches the answer in 3 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for October 17, 2022?
The Wordle answer for October 17, 2022 (puzzle #485) was STEIN.
What does STEIN mean?
STEIN: A beer mug, usually made of ceramic or glass.
Why was Wordle #485 tricky?
STEIN 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.

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