Today's Wordle Answer #531 - December 2, 2022 Solution And Hints

The holiday season is bringing us a lucky streak, it seems. Like yesterday's Wordle, we solved today's quiz one step faster than WordleBot did, and the resulting feeling is so thrilling, we want you to have it too. Here are some hints that should help you unravel the answer on time, and if you'd rather skip the brain-teasing, you can jump right to the second section where we reveal the full answer.

Today's word can function as a noun or a verb, and it describes the irritation you get when your skin rubs too frequently against something. In another context, you [solution word] a part of your body if you rub it to generate some warmth. Additionally, a noise or sound can [solution word] you if it's irritating or annoying. In all contexts, today's word suggests friction of some sort. It has two vowels, "A" and "E," as its third and fifth letters, respectively, and there are no repeated letters. If you replaced the fourth letter with "S," you'd have a new word that means to pursue or run after someone or something.

The answer to today's Wordle puzzle (#531 – December 2, 2022) is chafe. It's of French origin, tracing back to Old French "chaufer," which means to "heat, warm up, or become warm" (via Etymonline). We hit a stroke of luck today, and solved the puzzle in only two tries. Our usual Wordle-solving approach is very random — we open with a vowel-heavy word, but not any from the list of recommended Wordle-starting words because playing by the "rules" can get monotonous. Wordle is a game, after all, and games are supposed to be fun.

But today, we opened with WordleBot's former #1 starting word, "crane," and it turns out it's a good day to play by the book. That guess turned three tiles green, and eliminated all but four possible answers: cease, chase, chafe, or clade. We made another lucky guess, and that turned out to be the solution word. We wish you even better luck.