The tips for today's Wordle (opens in new tab) are just below, along with extensive tips, guides, and archives designed to make April 12 (662) and other Wordles just a little easier.

Rather than solve the Wordle today, I took a frantic guess using the only letters left to try, but still wasn't sure if it would work. Fortunately, it worked in the end, but I expect a slightly less "exciting" Wordle answer in the near future.

Today's word is the name of a white crystalline salt that has a wide range of uses, including washing powder, soap, and enamel glazes. The substance is also known as sodium borate, and one of today's three consonants is a letter that should normally be avoided.

No letter is used twice in today's puzzle.

Playing Wordle well is like winning a small victory every day:

There is no time pressure. It doesn't hurt to come back later if you struggle to find an answer or find a tactical word for your next guess.

These are your winning words. The answer to the Wordle for March 12 (662) is "BORAX."

Knowing the answers to past wordls helps eliminate the possibility of the present. Since the same word is unlikely to be repeated, you can find clues to guess or find words you don't know.

Here are some recent Wordle solutions:

Wordle gives you six columns of five boxes each day, and your job is to eliminate or identify which five-letter word is hidden and which letter it contains.

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

The second time around, you will need to compliment the starting word, using another "good" guess to cover the common letter you missed last time, while avoiding the letter you now know for sure is not present in today's answer. After that, you simply 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 can't 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 a new tab). Also, if you want to know which words are already in use, scroll to the relevant section above.

Originally, Wordle was 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. (opens in new tab). Indeed, it will only be a matter of time before we all communicate using only tricolor boxes.