The answer to today’s Wordle puzzle (#471 – October 3, 2022) is sting. Something stings if it causes you literal or figurative smarting pain, or you get “stung” if you pay too high of a price for something. Also, a sting operation is one in which an undercover detective stages a ruse to catch a criminal red-handed. One more thing that stings is spending $150k on a supercar, only to have it called ugly.
The word sting is from the Old English word “stingan,” meaning “to stab, pierce, or prick with a point” and from Proto-Germanic “stingan,” also meaning to prick (via Etymonline). We got lucky today and solved the puzzle in only three tries, even faster than WordleBot’s four attempts. Our first guess was the word brain, followed by inset, which provided enough information to guess the answer on the third try. WordleBot started with its recommended starter word, slate, and today we’re glad we didn’t play by its rules.
