Wordle #861 hints & answer for October 28, 2023
· Saturday
This page always keeps Wordle #861 for October 28, 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 #861
What kind of word
Wiktionary lists it as a noun.
What it means
“A bricklayer, one whose occupation is to build with stone or brick.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.
How it ends
Ends in N.
How it starts
Begins with M.
The middle letter
The middle letter is S.
Reveal the answer and explanation
The answer to Wordle #861 was
MASON: A bricklayer, one whose occupation is to build with stone or brick.
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.
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: 42/100 (middle of the pack). 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 #861, measured
This section compares MASON'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, MASON measured harder for the solver than about 42% of all 1,952 recorded answers to date. Its rating is middle of the pack. 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
SALET 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, ADIEU left 289 candidates, about 26 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.
| Opener | First-guess feedback | Answers still possible |
|---|---|---|
| SALET | SALET | 11 |
| SLATE | SLATE | 17 |
| TARSE | TARSE | 19 |
| RAISE | RAISE | 20 |
| STARE | STARE | 20 |
| CRANE | CRANE | 47 |
| ARISE | ARISE | 63 |
| AUDIO | AUDIO | 78 |
| TRACE | TRACE | 133 |
| ADIEU | ADIEU | 289 |
“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 MASON → It shows which guesses reduced the candidate pool on each turn.
Solver replay
One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to MASON.
The solver reaches the answer in 3 guesses.
Common questions
- What was the Wordle answer for October 28, 2023?
- The Wordle answer for October 28, 2023 (puzzle #861) was MASON.
- What does MASON mean?
- MASON: A bricklayer, one whose occupation is to build with stone or brick.
- Why was Wordle #861 tricky?
- MASON 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.