those annoying ~$ files

My Word (using Mac Sonoma) leaves behind these ~$ files. They are supposed to be temporary, but they look like files I was last dealing with months ago. They are NOT temporary. I wanted to clean them up, and rm ~$* doesn't do the trick. What works well is rm -i './~$'* . Go figure. 

Now, WHY are these files getting left behind by Word and polluting my Desktop folder?