To make the October 17 (day 485) challenge go as smoothly as possible, I will provide today's wordle answers in plain text, as well as general and freshly made up hints.

I was surprised by today's answer because the word I targeted was one I assumed would not be the answer. Of course, Wordle has shown us many times before that any word could be the answer, but I figured that at least a fresh set of letters would help narrow things down. As it turned out, that was not necessary.

Today's answer is a very specific style of clay drinking vessel designed to hold beer. They often have ornate lids. To solve this problem, we need to find two vowels.

If there is anything better than playing Wordle, it is playing Wordle well:

There is no pressure to complete it by midnight. So don't treat this game as a casual newspaper crossword; you can come back to it later if you come up blank.

So let's cross the finish line: the answer to the October 17 (485) Wordle is STEIN.

The more past Wordle answers you remember, the more likely you will be able to guess today's Wordle answer without accidentally choosing a pre-existing answer. Also, looking at past Wordle solutions can give you great ideas for fun starting words to keep your daily puzzles fresh.

Here are some recent Wordle solutions:

Wordle will show you five boxes in six columns each day, and it is up to you to decide which five-letter word is hidden within each box.

You will want to start with a strong word like ALERT (opens in a new tab)-one that contains multiple vowels, common consonants, and non-repeating letters Press Enter and the box will show correct or incorrect. If the box goes to ⬛️, that means the letter is not in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word but not in that position. means that the correct letter is in the correct position.

Then, the answer is to use another "good" word to cover a common letter that was missed last time, while trying to avoid a letter that we now know for certain is not present in today's answer.

Then just use what you have learned to narrow down the correct word. You can try a total of 6 times, and you can only use actual words (so you cannot fill the box with EEEEE to see if there is an E). Letters can be repeated (e.g. BOOKS).

If you need further advice, see Wordle's tips (opens in new tab).

Wordle was originally invented by software engineer Josh Wardle (opens in new tab) as a surprise for his partner, who loved word games. From there it spread to his family and was finally released to the public. The word puzzle game has since provided tremendous inspiration for games like Wordle (opens in new tab), focusing the daily gimmicks on music, math, and geography It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular that it was sold to the New York Times for a seven-figure price! (opens in new tab). Indeed, it will only be a matter of time before we all communicate using only tricolor boxes.