Today's Wordle Answer #397 - July 21, 2022 Solution And Hints

Today's Wordle answer is a hard nut to crack. If you want to skip to the bottom for the answer, we totally understand. Some of us like the fulfillment of solving the daily puzzle without help — that way we can retain bragging rights for being the cleverest in our friend groups. But sometimes, like today, the clever thing to do is seek help, and we're gladly providing some. As with previous weeks, we've got some hints, suggestions, and the answer.

To start, here's your first hint: the word you're looking for has two vowels — "A" and "I" — in the first and fourth positions, respectively. You'll unravel that easily enough if you're one to use starter words like audio or ouija. Here's the second hint: today's Wordle solution is an insect, otherwise known as the greenfly. If you have any experience with farming, it's one you'd have probably come in contact with. If you already know the word, then well done, genius. 

The answer for today's Wordle #397 (July 21, 2022) is aphid, which is a common pest of crop and garden plants. It's a pesky pest, and definitely a pesky answer. It's more annoying because the letter combination isn't exactly uncommon, but even with three letters revealed, it's still a difficult conclusion to arrive at. Obviously, The New York Times decided to take things up a notch, given the easy ride we'd been having all week.

Anyway, Britannica.com defines aphids as sap-sucking pests — and yes, they definitely sapped us of mental energy and pride in our vocabulary. We started off with crane, the WordleBot's beloved first guess. This time it didn't pay off as well as it did yesterday, since we only got one yellow tile out of it. It took four more guesses and quite a bit of ceiling-staring to arrive at the answer, but it was worth it. Even though the WordleBot would have solved the puzzle in four guesses, it complimented our out-of-the-box thinking with our fourth guess "withy," and that more than restored our lost pride.