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Another Monday, another week sprawled out before us. We had a very snowy weekend. A very chilly St. Patrick’s Day. I’m ready and then some for summertime. I keep trying to keep the winter blues at bay—OrangeTheory HIIT workouts, hot yoga, hikes in the soggy forest—but every since COVID I’ve had much more intense seasonal depression. Oh well! I’m not complaining. Life is good. My brain is just the way it is.
And we have Wordle, for which I am always thankful.
Let’s do today’s, shall we?
How To Solve Today’s Wordle
The Hint: Not just any wheat.
The Clue: This Wordle has far more consonants than vowels.
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The Answer:
Wordle Analysis
Every day I check Wordle Bot to see how I did. You can check your Wordles with Wordle Bot right here.
I did not do well today, but it was kind of a tricky word. I guessed clove simply because it popped into my head. No particular reason. I didn’t expect it to be the best word, but you never know. 135 words remained, which isn’t terrible. Alas, rainy did not slash that number down to a manageable sum.
With no new boxes, I decided to bring back my yellow ‘L’ and ‘E’ with dwell, with put them luckily into green boxes. But now I still had three words to choose from and smelt did not do the trick. Fortunately, spelt did. It’s both the past tense for spell in British English and a type of wheat (much like smelt is past tense for smell but also a part of blacksmithing).
Competitive Wordle Score
I lose 1 point for guessing in five and 1 for losing to the Bot who had it in three today somehow. Tricky word. Clever Bot.
Today’s Wordle Etymology
The word “spelt” has two primary meanings, each with its own etymology. The first meaning refers to a type of wheat (Triticum spelta), and the second is the past tense and past participle of the verb “spell” in British English.
- As a type of wheat: The word “spelt” comes from the Middle English “spelt”, which dates back to before the 12th century. It has Germanic origins, related to the Old High German “spelta”, which refers to the grain. The etymology reflects the grain’s long history of cultivation in Europe, especially in medieval times and in certain traditional farming regions up to the present day.
- As the past tense of “spell”: The use of “spelt” as the past and past participle form of “spell” in British English also comes from Middle English, where “spell” meant to read letter by letter or to indicate or mean. The transformation of “spell” to “spelt” in its past forms follows a pattern in English where verbs change their stem vowel in the past tense, similar to “tell” becoming “told” or “sell” becoming “sold”. This usage is part of a broader diversity of past tense formations in English, which include both regular forms (ending in -ed) and irregular forms like “spelt”.
In American English, “spelled” is more commonly used as the past tense and past participle of “spell”, while “spelt” is primarily used to refer to the type of wheat. The difference in usage highlights the variation between British and American English.
