The answer to Wordle #539 was

KNOCK: An abrupt rapping sound, as from an impact of a hard object against wood.

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

Word difficulty: Hard

Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter, uncommon letters, only one vowel.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #539 scores 56/100 for solver difficulty (middle of the pack).

18 Possible answers after CRANE
229 Possible answers after SLATE
165 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 #539, measured

This section compares KNOCK'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

56/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, KNOCK measured harder for the solver than about 56% of all 1,907 recorded answers to date. Its rating is middle of the pack. It repeats K; 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

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, AUDIO left 286 candidates, about 16 times as many. ADIEU, ARISE, RAISE, SALET, SLATE, STARE and TARSE came back all gray. None of their letters appear in KNOCK.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against KNOCK, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
CRANE CRANE 18
TRACE TRACE 39
ADIEU ADIEU 165
ARISE ARISE 174
RAISE RAISE 174
SALET SALET 229
SLATE SLATE 229
STARE STARE 235
TARSE TARSE 235
AUDIO AUDIO 286

“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 KNOCK.

The solver reaches the answer in 3 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for December 10, 2022?
The Wordle answer for December 10, 2022 (puzzle #539) was KNOCK.
What does KNOCK mean?
KNOCK: An abrupt rapping sound, as from an impact of a hard object against wood.
Why was Wordle #539 tricky?
KNOCK is rated hard for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter, uncommon letters, only one vowel.

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