Wordle #488 Answer
October 20, 2022 · Thursday
The answer to Wordle #488 was
DENIM: A textile often made of cotton with a distinct diagonal pattern.
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 easier: five different letters, at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.
How difficult was it for the solver?
In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #488 scores 63/100 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 #488, measured
This section compares DENIM'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, DENIM measured harder for the solver than about 63% of all 1,906 recorded answers to date. Its rating is middle of the pack. The example solver route takes four 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
AUDIO left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 11 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, SALET left 172 candidates, about 16 times as many.
| Opener | First-guess feedback | Answers still possible |
|---|---|---|
| AUDIO | AUDIO | 11 |
| ADIEU | ADIEU | 16 |
| ARISE | ARISE | 38 |
| RAISE | RAISE | 38 |
| CRANE | CRANE | 62 |
| STARE | STARE | 119 |
| TARSE | TARSE | 119 |
| TRACE | TRACE | 126 |
| SLATE | SLATE | 170 |
| SALET | SALET | 172 |
“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 DENIM → It shows which guesses reduced the candidate pool on each turn.
Solver replay
One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to DENIM.
The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.
Common questions
- What was the Wordle answer for October 20, 2022?
- The Wordle answer for October 20, 2022 (puzzle #488) was DENIM.
- What does DENIM mean?
- DENIM: A textile often made of cotton with a distinct diagonal pattern.
- Why was Wordle #488 tricky?
- DENIM 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.