The solution to today’s Wordle puzzle (#515 – November 16, 2022) is baker. The word is from Middle English bakere, which used to be “baken,” itself a replacement of “bachare,” which goes back to Old English “bæcere,” all meaning “to bake”.

It’s a tad surprising that it took the average player four to five tries to solve today’s Wordle, considering the answer is such a common word. Also, its letter combination is not uncommon — it even contains two letters from the top recommended Wordle-starter word, slate, which is a top pick because it contains some of the most common letters in the Wordle answer pool (although the NYT is making some changes to that now). Then again, K isn’t a very popular letter, so that might have been the stumbling block for most players.

Our starting word, scout, was a very unlucky first guess, which has been the case lately. There were 720 remaining potential solutions, but after guessing the words “brain” and “berry,” the answer was clear. We hope you solve the puzzle faster.