Wordle #853 hints & answer for October 20, 2023
· Friday
This page always keeps Wordle #853 for October 20, 2023. Check that number against your game before opening a hint. The answer remains below a separate reveal.
Wordle changes at midnight in your local time zone. For the current local puzzle, use today’s hints. This dated page keeps the same puzzle when the day changes.
Our independent hints use the verified puzzle answer. Play the official game at The New York Times.
Hints for Wordle #853
What kind of word
Wiktionary lists it as a verb.
What it means
“To happen or take place.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.
Fill the gap
“The liftoff will _____ in exactly twelve seconds.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentence selected from Wiktionary, with the answer removed.
The middle letter
The middle letter is C.
How it starts
Begins with O.
Reveal the answer and explanation
The answer to Wordle #853 was
OCCUR: To happen or take place.
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 difficult: a repeated letter.
The word rating describes familiarity and letter features. The solver score below measures how a fixed strategy handles the puzzle; an unusual word can still be easy for that strategy.
How difficult was it for the solver?
Solver pressure: 90/100 (hard for the solver). This is a percentile among past puzzles under the same strategy: 0 is easiest and 100 is hardest for the solver.
This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →
Wordle #853, measured
This section compares OCCUR'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, OCCUR measured harder for the solver than about 90% of all 1,952 recorded answers to date. Its rating is hard for the solver. It repeats C; 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 11 of the 2,384 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, SLATE left 230 candidates, about 21 times as many. SALET and SLATE came back all gray. None of their letters appear in OCCUR.
| Opener | First-guess feedback | Answers still possible |
|---|---|---|
| CRANE | CRANE | 11 |
| TRACE | TRACE | 19 |
| AUDIO | AUDIO | 53 |
| ARISE | ARISE | 65 |
| TARSE | TARSE | 95 |
| STARE | STARE | 102 |
| RAISE | RAISE | 103 |
| ADIEU | ADIEU | 195 |
| SALET | SALET | 230 |
| SLATE | SLATE | 230 |
“Answers still possible” counts the words in the site's 2,384-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 OCCUR → It shows which guesses reduced the candidate pool on each turn.
Solver replay
One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to OCCUR.
The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.
Common questions
- What was the Wordle answer for October 20, 2023?
- The Wordle answer for October 20, 2023 (puzzle #853) was OCCUR.
- What does OCCUR mean?
- OCCUR: To happen or take place.
- Why was Wordle #853 tricky?
- OCCUR is rated moderate for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter.