Semantle hint, no spoilers: read your numbers, then take one small step

Hint or Give Up: know which button does what

Semantle gives you two ways out, and they’re very different.

• Hint adds one word to your guesses for you, marked as a hint. The game goes on, and the secret word is still yours to find. Your stats keep count of the hints you’ve used.
• Give Up ends the game and reveals the secret word. Save it for the days when you’re truly done.

So if you came looking for a “Semantle hint of the day,” the honest answer is that the best one is a tap away in the game. Try the next section first, though. Often the numbers you already have are enough.

Read your numbers first

The line at the top. Every Semantle game tells you the similarity of the nearest word, the tenth-nearest word and the thousandth-nearest word. That line is the day’s scale, and it changes from word to word. Measure your best guess against it, not against yesterday’s game.

Similarity. Each guess gets a score. Higher means closer in meaning, and the secret word itself scores 100.

Proximity, out of 1,000. Once your guess is among the thousand words nearest to the secret word, Semantle shows where it ranks, for example 850 / 1000. The higher that number, the closer you are. If your best guess has a proximity at all, you’re in the right neighborhood. Now the job is to walk up the street, not to move house.

Tepid, cold, far. Guesses outside the thousand nearest get a label instead. Far is the coldest, then cold, then tepid. A tepid guess isn’t in the neighborhood yet, but it’s pointing the right way.

Semantle is hot and cold in disguise

Notice those labels: cold, tepid. Semantle already speaks the language of the old children’s game, where someone hides a thing and calls out “warmer” or “colder” as you search. The numbers are just a more precise way of saying the same thing.

It helps to think of it that way. A score is easy to overthink. A temperature you simply feel. Here’s a calm path to a secret word when every guess gets a temperature, in this case the word pillow:

1. engine39 °FFreezing: wrong world entirely
2. night117 °FLukewarm: a time of day, and a clue
3. sleep151 °FHot: what happens at night
4. bed172 °FHot: where it happens
5. blanket189 °FScorching: right next to it
6. pillowFound it!

Each step asks one question of the best word so far. When? Night. What happens then? Sleep. Where? Bed. What else is on the bed? From there it’s one guess. The same questions work just as well on a Semantle score.

Try it now: what’s your first guess?

Guess

Your word goes straight into today’s game.

Five ways to get unstuck without spoiling it

1. Go back to your best word. Look at your guesses ranked by similarity, not at the last one you typed. Your newest guess is rarely your best, and every next guess should start from the warmest.
2. Ask your best word questions. What is it for? Where do you find it? What is it made of? Who uses it? Each answer is a fresh guess that leads away from the spot where you’re stuck.
3. Change the kind of word. If all your guesses are things, try an action or a describing word. If they’re all actions, try a place. A sideways step often shows a road you couldn’t see.
4. Press Hint. If three or four careful guesses haven’t lifted your best score, that’s the moment for Semantle’s Hint. It adds one word, and you take it from there. One hint used well beats twenty guesses spent going in circles.
5. Ask for a nudge, not the word. If someone you know has already solved today’s game, ask a question with a one-word answer. Is it a thing or an action? Indoors or outdoors? Something you can hold? You keep the find, they keep the secret. And stay away from pages with “answer today” in the title. They’re there to give the word away.

For the full method of opening wide, following your best word and closing in, the Contexto strategy guide works just as well for Semantle.

The same rule for Contexto

If your morning has Contexto in it too, its help works much the same way. Open the three-dot menu: “Hint” reveals one word, and “Give up” shows the word of the day. Hint first, give up last. The same menu has previous games and a random mode, handy if you’d like practice on a word that isn’t today’s.

When one word a day isn’t enough

Once Semantle is solved, or set aside for the day, there’s another secret word waiting in Warmer Warmer. It’s the hot and cold idea played straight: every guess gets a temperature, from freezing to scorching, and the word is found by meaning, not spelling. It’s free, it runs in the browser on a phone or a computer, and there’s no app and no sign-up. A new word arrives every day at your midnight, the same for everyone in your language.

Its help works differently. The “I need a hint” button doesn’t hand you a word. It shows you who can help: the players’ Facebook group, where people help each other every day, or family or friends you can send the game to. Since everyone gets the same word, anyone who has already found it can give you a nudge.

After you’ve found the day’s word, a free account opens the Hot Word, one harder word for the whole week, and the Trail, four secret words in a row.

New to this kind of game? Start with the hot and cold word game, which explains the idea from the beginning, or see how the whole family compares in games like Semantle. Can’t remember which game you played last time? This guide to the word game that tells you how close you are will sort it out. And today’s word is waiting.