Today’s Wordle Hints and Answer: Help for April 4, #1020 – CNET [CNET]

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Here are some hints, and the answer, for Wordle No. 1020

CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of “Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the ’70s and ’80s,” as well as “The Totally Sweet ’90s.” She’s been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She’s Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she’ll be first in line.

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Today’s Wordle isn’t the toughest word in the dictionary (we know, players, you’re still mad about SALLY being an answer back in March). Today’s answer is a much more commonly used word.

For me, this answer was pretty easy, because I have two regular start words, and between them, they gave me three of the five letters. Plus, it didn’t have any extremely rare letters or unusual patterns.

Every day, we’ll post hints and then the answer for the current day’s Wordle, just in case you need it.

Today’s Wordle hints

Warning: If you keep reading, you’ll see the Wordle answer for Thursday, April 4, puzzle #1020. That could be a devastating spoiler for some players. But if you just need the answer — maybe you’re on your last guess and just don’t want to see an 800-game streak go poof — keep reading. 

Wordle hint #1: Starts with two consonants

Just like yesterday’s word, today’s answer begins with two consonants.

Wordle hint #2: One vowel

But there’s only one vowel, so if you’ve nailed which one it is, you just need to work on the placement.

Wordle hint #3: Movie mania

The answer is also the first word in a song title from the musical The Sound of Music.

Wordle hint #4: Starting letter

The answer begins with the letter C.

Wordle hint #5: Meaning

The word means, “to go up or to ascend.”

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Here comes the spoiler: Today’s Wordle answer is CLIMB. Climb every Wordle mountain, ford every Wordle stream. Follow every rainbow, don’t run out of steam. Hey, not everybody can be Rodgers and Hammerstein, you know.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s answer was PLAIT, which sparked some debate between Americans and those abroad about what exactly you call a hair braid, and how you pronounce the word for it. PLAT or PLATE, your call. I thought that was a tough one, but a friend got it on his second guess.

Everyday Wordle tips

I’ve written a lot about Wordle — from covering its 1,000th word to my list of the best starter words to a helpful two-step strategy to controversial word changes. I’ve even rounded up what I learned playing the hit online word puzzle for a full year. So if you’re rethinking your need for the actual answer, you might try tips from one of those stories.

Still need a starter word? One person told me they just look around and choose a five-letter object that they’ve spotted to use as their starter word — such as COUCH or CHAIR.  I tend to stick to starter words that have the most popular letters used in English words. I like TRAIN as a starter, though I have a friend who uses TRAIL. I’ve read that people use the financial term ROATE, but I like to use words I actually know.

What is Wordle?

If you read this far, you know how to play. You have six chances to guess a five-letter word, and the game gives you feedback as to whether the letters you’ve guessed are in the puzzle or not, and if they are in the same spot where you guessed them to be. The Times bought the game from creator Josh Wardle for seven figures in 2022. Wardle famously created the game for his partner, and let them narrow down the 12,000 five-letter words in the English language to just 2,500, creating the database of answers. It was convenient of him to have a name that plays off “word,” too.

A Times spokesperson told me it lists the very first Wordle as appearing on June 19, 2021, and the paper celebrated the game’s 1000th word on March 15. Spoiler: That 1000th word was ERUPT. As in, Dad will ERUPT if the Wordle is so tough he loses his streak.

There are other fun games in the Times Games stable. My latest addiction is Connections, which I think is trickier than Wordle. This is the game where you look at a grid of 16 words and try to put them into four groups of related words. Sometimes the relationships between the words are pretty out there — like the time when it was four words that all began with rock bands, such as RUSHMORE and JOURNEYMAN. (Connections got a little sassy on April Fool’s Day with an all-emoji puzzle. Some gamers did NOT find that funny.)

Spelling Bee is a popular Times game too. And there’s a new game that’s still in beta, Strands, which I’m trying to master.