Today’s Wordle Answer #503 – November 4, 2022 Solution And Hints

The answer to today’s Wordle puzzle (#503 — November 4, 2022) is photo. The word is of Greek origin, meaning “light” or “photographic” or “photoelectric” (via Etymonline), and it’s added to other nouns or adjectives to form new words that relate to light (like photosynthesis) or photography (like photogenic). It’s also the shortened form of the longer word photograph, and it has quite an interesting history. According to Etymonline, the term photograph was coined by English polymath, astronomer, and photography pioneer Sir John Frederick William Herschel — the son of, get this, Sir Frederick William Herschel, who was also a renowned astronomer (talk about being a chip off the old block). 

Fun fact, there were other terms in consideration when linguists were trying to come up with a name for what we now know as the photograph. There was photogene and heliograph, in which case we would all now be taking helios instead of photos. How fun. Other suggestions included sunprint, sun-picture, and photogram based on the telegram, but that didn’t catch on. We appreciate Wordle answers that unravel such interesting etymological facts, and we hope you do, too. If you’re itching for more puzzle fun and don’t want to wait until tomorrow for another game, here are some more puzzles like Wordle to keep you engaged.