The answer to Wordle #544 was

RIVAL: A competitor (person, team, company, etc.) with the same goal as another, or striving to attain the same thing. Defeating a rival may be a primary or necessary goal of a competitor.

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: uncommon letters.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #544 scores 15/100 for solver difficulty (easier for the solver).

68 Possible answers after CRANE
59 Possible answers after SLATE
62 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 #544, measured

This section compares RIVAL'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

15/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, RIVAL measured harder for the solver than about 15% of all 1,907 recorded answers to date. Its rating is easier for the solver. CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU leave about 63 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

RAISE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 1 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, TARSE left 71 candidates, about 71 times as many.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against RIVAL, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
RAISE RAISE 1
ARISE ARISE 17
AUDIO AUDIO 45
SLATE SLATE 59
ADIEU ADIEU 62
TRACE TRACE 62
STARE STARE 65
CRANE CRANE 68
SALET SALET 69
TARSE TARSE 71

“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 RIVAL.

The solver reaches the answer in 3 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for December 15, 2022?
The Wordle answer for December 15, 2022 (puzzle #544) was RIVAL.
What does RIVAL mean?
RIVAL: A competitor (person, team, company, etc.) with the same goal as another, or striving to attain the same thing. Defeating a rival may be a primary or necessary goal of a competitor.
Why was Wordle #544 tricky?
RIVAL is rated moderate for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: uncommon letters.

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