Welcome to Word Game 66. Many thanks to Luciano for moderating the previous contest having to do with whiskey or was it whisky, or better yet both.

Please write and post here a cryptic clue whose answer is a reasonable 5-letter first guess word for Wordle. If you somehow haven’t heard of Wordle, it’s a daily online word game in which you have to guess a fairly common not-capitalized 5-letter English target word in 6 tries, where after each try the game tells you for each letter guessed whether it is in the target word at all and if so whether it is in the correct position. So essentially a reasonable first guess should eliminate a lot of candidate words to narrow the search down for the next guesses. If you do play Wordle then one of the past first guess words you’ve used would fit the bill. There is no requirement on the cryptic clue but consideration will be given to surface readings that are thematic to this contest.

Each contestant can enter up to three clues. The deadline is February 2, 2022.

P.S. The Wordle site is https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/
P.P.S. Yes I may be using this WG to collect good first guesses. ;-)

Dislocated spine aches (5)

Luciano

Seat in the UK involves a single issue (5)

Luciano

Wild bird's hacked by a couple of axes (5)

Luciano

Bury in uncertain terrain (5)

Demonstrated stain can be re-made: that's smooth (5)

Here's my effort at a surface about Wordle:

First, try and loosen up: it can tantalize (5)

Here are the cryptic clues whose answers may be reasonable first guess words for Wordle. I’m drawing a blank on one of them.

Luciano

Dislocated spine aches (5)
PINES; SPINE with the S dislocated; def = aches

Seat in the UK involves a single issue (5)
ARISE; ARSE (seat in the UK) around I (single); def = issue

Wild bird's hacked by a couple of axes (5)
I need help on this one.

Duke

Bury in uncertain terrain (5)
INTER; hidden; def = bury

Demonstrated stain can be re-made: that's smooth (5)
SATIN; STAIN remade; def = that’s smooth

First, try and loosen up: it can tantalize (5)
TEASE; Try + EASE; def = it can tantalize

> Wild bird's hacked by a couple of axes (5)
> I need help on this one.

Mark:

If I'm feeling confident, I'll enter a word like this. It has never turned out very well.

The answer has a J and at least one Z.

Luciano

Here are the results of WG66 whose entries are cryptic clues whose answers may be reasonable first guess words for Wordle.

Luciano

Dislocated spine aches (5)
PINES; SPINE with the S dislocated; def = aches
Succint if painful clue. I might question if P is a good letter to narrow down in the first guess but it does seem to show up a lot in Wordle, and I recently guessed BLEAT and CLEAT before getting PLEAT on the sixth and last guess. Phew.

Seat in the UK involves a single issue (5)
ARISE; ARSE around I; def = issue
Good deception in both elements of the wordplay and in the definition's part of speech, as well as a consistent UK theme. ARISE would be an excellent first guess. This is my winner.

Wild bird's hacked by a couple of axes (5)
JAZZY; JAY cut by ZZ; def = wild
Tough clue partly because the Z axis is the last one to consider, never mind two of them. JAZZY would generally be a terrible first guess, but the one time it shows up as the answer, most everyone else would not get it at all, and you would be a god to them.

Duke

Bury in uncertain terrain (5)
INTER; hidden; def = bury
Good hidden clue. Guessing the answer from the definition, I first thought the IN was given and somehow uncertain meant ‘just 3/7 of’, but then hidden clues seem to be always the last thing I consider. INTER would be a good first guess.

Demonstrated stain can be re-made: that's smooth (5)
SATIN; STAIN remade; def = that’s smooth
I don’t know what ‘demonstrated’ is doing in the wordplay other than a redundancy in the anagram. SATIN would be a good first guess.

First, try and loosen up: it can tantalize (5)
TEASE; Try + EASE; def = it can tantalize
This clue works and its surface reading can vaguely apply to doing word games like crosswords and Wordle. TEASE is not the best first guess in my opinion since we don’t want to waste letters to see if the answer has two E’s before we know it even has one.

Luciano is invited to run Word Game 67.

Wordle 232 4/6

⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

> Seat in the UK involves a single issue (5)
> ARISE; ARSE around I; def = issue
> Wild bird's hacked by a couple of axes (5)
> JAZZY; JAY cut by ZZ; def = wild

Serendipitously, here are two clues that appeared in today's (Sunday) regular Washington Post crossword puzzles:
[Washington Post's own Sunday puzzle] 110D: Behind in an English class? (Answer: ARSE)
[L.A. Times syndicated Sunday puzzle] 22A: x, y, and z, in math (Answer: AXES)

> Demonstrated stain can be re-made: that's smooth (5)
SATIN; STAIN remade; def = that’s smooth
I don’t know what ‘demonstrated’ is doing in the wordplay other than a redundancy in the anagram. SATIN would be a good first guess.

Sorry I didn't check back her as quickly as I should have. This is a triple, with "demonstrated" cluing "SAT IN."