EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is for Wordle answer #248; the February 23rd Wordle answer is available now.
After the troublesome words of last week, it feels like the New York Times turned the difficulty dial down for this week's Wordle puzzles. Wordle is a once-a-day word-guessing game that has gained popularity throughout 2022. It's hard to go an entire day without seeing those familiar little-colored boxes littered all over a social media timeline. Today's Wordle is a bit easier than some of the recent ones but some players might still need a little help.
Wordle challenges players to guess a five-letter word in six guesses or less on a 5x6 grid. When a random starting word is chosen the game will highlight certain letters green if they are correct, yellow if they are correct but in the wrong spot, or grey if they are not in the word at all. This information will help push the player forward in their next guess and, hopefully, towards the correct answer. Wordle also provides a 'Hard Mode' that adds a little extra challenge to the game by not allowing the reuse of incorrect letters or incorrect placement of letters proven correct. This mode can be toggled on or off in the options menu of the game.
Wordle's popularity can easily be traced back to its social media sharing ability. After a puzzle is completed, players will have the option to share their results using colored emoji boxes that represent the player's journey through the game. These boxes not only represent how the Wordle played out for the day but also keep the answer, and attempts, spoiler-free. This, combined with the simple gameplay, has brought Wordle to the forefront of social media and only helped increase the game's popularity.
Wordle’s February 22nd, 2022 (#248) Hints
For those players who just need a little help and don't wish to have today's Wordle answer spoiled for them right away, we've provided three hints that should help out.
- Hint 1: Botanists have a love/hate relationship with today's Wordle answer.
- Hint 2: In some timelines, today's Wordle created Halloween's Michael Myers.
- Hint 3: Today's answer is synonymous with a popular, often red, flower.
Wordle 248 Answer (February 22)
If the clues above didn't give it away, today's answer is THORN. For our starting Wordle word today we used IRATE, this gave us two out-of-place letters and three that don't belong at all. For the second guess, we used TOURS which provided the correct 'T' and 'R' placement and a misplaced 'O'. This easily led to the correct answer and we completed today's Wordle in three guesses.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This guide is for the New York Times version of the game, daily answers may vary if players haven't refreshed their browsers.