There must have been 500 replies to his meek admission of guilt. One time he missed the word “abattoir,” and on Twitter, we all went berserk.

At least once a week I send him a sternly worded email about a word he’s missed, likely making me the most obnoxious person he’s ever had to deal with. I forgive him because he’s both good-natured and a genius. He is also prone to using terms out of organic chemistry textbooks, as well as wildly obscure religious vocabulary (at least to non-Jews). Sam Ezersky, the twenty-something whiz kid who crafts this puzzle, doesn’t consider words like “nonagonal,” “longan,” “galangal,” “glia,” “partita,” “apparat,” or “irrupt” to be obscure. There are various ranks of proficiency: Beginner, Good Start, Moving Up, Good, Solid, Nice, Great, Amazing, Genius, and then the ultimate, which is Queen Bee. There is at least one pangram per puzzle.Īs you find words, you get showered with little compliments, such as “genius,” and “amazing.” I ignore all that noise because I’m an obsessed maniac who bears down on the Queen Bee like a racetrack greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit. Individual letters can be used more than once.Īcceptable words do not include words that are hyphenated, a proper noun, or that qualify as “obscure,” except when they’re totally obscure, and there’s nothing you can do about it.Ī pangram is when you use all seven letters or more. Words three letters or fewer are not accepted. That was when I discovered the Spelling Bee. It’s that the clues get trickier, and the trickier they get, the more annoyed I become. It’s not that the words necessarily get harder. Monday’s is the easiest, Saturday’s the hardest, and Sunday’s is a marathon of patient endurance that I simply do not possess. They get increasingly difficult as the week goes on. How was I supposed to know how addictive they were?Īdmittedly, The New York Times crosswords were the best, although by Thursday’s puzzle, I was already irritated. Did I know that feverishly doing crosswords was only one rung down from crocheting tea cozies and watching murder mysteries?Īfter exhausting once again the entire seven-season Buffy oeuvre, plowing through Firefly for the fifth time, gritting my teeth during the creepy sexual assault subplots of Veronica Mars and reciting all the dialogue of both seasons of Party Down (you have no idea how much I love that show), it was only one lateral move to word puzzles. 1.At some point during the pandemic, desperate for amusement of any kind, I turned to word puzzles.

Here are 19 games to play while you wait for Wordle to refresh. Add some new word games to your anti-boredom arsenal so you can play a quick round while you wait for the train, or opt to play in lieu of a mindless social media scroll.įrom meme-worthy Wordle spin-offs like the Swiftie-themed Taylordle and food-themed Phoodle, to classic brain teasers like NYT’s Spelling Bee or a Lewis Carroll-inspired word ladder, these brain busters will keep you guessing long after you’ve played your Wordle of the day. What’s more, many games like Wordle allow you to play as much as you want, have various levels and accomplishments to aim for, and let you to play with friends. While Wordle is unique in the fact that everyone has the same word of the day and only gets six tries to guess it, there are many apps and URL-hosted word games to play after Wordle that are similarly fun and intellectually stimulating. Whether The New York Times’ acquisition has you preparing for a potential post-paywall world without Wordle, or you’ve just already played today’s puzzle, you might be searching for some similar word games to put your diction buzz to good use. If 2022 has brought with it an obsession with five-letter words, you might be in the market for more games like Worlde - because sadly, you can’t Wordle all day.

Nyt spelling bee queen bee