July 2021 in review

July 2021 is complete, with 31 puzzles and every date recorded. On the site's word-property scale it was an ordinary month. The highest estimated difficulty occurred on Jul 25, 2021 and the lowest on Jul 1, 2021; 11 answers doubled a letter and 10 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

UNFED 5 pts · Jul 25, 2021 · #36

UNFED appears less than once per million words in the corpus-based frequency data, so familiarity alone sets a Brutal floor. Its five distinct letters include at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

Lowest estimated difficulty

MODEL 0 pts · Jul 1, 2021 · #12

MODEL has five distinct letters, 2 vowels and no uncommon letters. Common first guesses therefore test many of its letters.

The spread ran from 0 points on Jul 1, 2021 to 5 on Jul 25, 2021. Both numbers describe single words, not a sequence. A hard day and an easy one can occur in the same week, so the trend line below compares whole months rather than individual days.

The difficulty trend

An ordinary month. July's 31 answers averaged 1.8 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 2.1 across the trailing one month, and a gap of 0.3 points sits inside the normal month-to-month spread of about ±0.3. At roughly thirty answers a month that is sampling noise, not a change in how answers were chosen. The difference does not support changing openers or strategy. The scale combines general-English corpus frequency with repeats, uncommon letters and missing vowels. It measures word properties, not player results.

Letters and patterns

11 of 31 answers doubled a letter, in line with the long-run archive rate of about 31%. This matches the usual rate. Test a repeat when the board stalls.

10 of 31 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W, in line with the long-run archive rate of about 28%. Standard openers test these letters less often, so the difficulty scale adds a penalty for each one.

No day reused an earlier answer: every puzzle this month was a first appearance in the site's recorded history. Repeats do happen, so a word having been a solution before is still no reason to drop it from your guesses.

Double-letter days: Jul 2 (#13) doubled A; Jul 7 (#18) doubled A; Jul 13 (#24) doubled O; Jul 14 (#25) doubled O; Jul 15 (#26) doubled A; Jul 16 (#27) doubled R; Jul 18 (#29) doubled T; Jul 20 (#31) doubled S; Jul 23 (#34) doubled F; Jul 24 (#35) doubled P; Jul 28 (#39) doubled O.

Uncommon-letter days: Jul 2 (#13) used K; Jul 3 (#14) used K; Jul 5 (#16) used Q; Jul 9 (#20) used J; Jul 21 (#32) used X; Jul 22 (#33) used K; Jul 26 (#37) used W; Jul 27 (#38) used W; Jul 30 (#41) used Z; Jul 31 (#42) used W.

How players fared

No day from this month has reached the Observatory's minimum public sample of 10 opt-in games, so no crowd numbers appear. The gate is deliberate: below it, a handful of results could stand in for a crowd and misrepresent a day.

Answer words are shown only for completed puzzles. Open a puzzle for its definition, difficulty and solver replay.

DateDayPuzzleAnswerWord difficulty
Jul 31, 2021 Saturday #42 → SOWER Hard
Jul 30, 2021 Friday #41 → CRAZY Tricky
Jul 29, 2021 Thursday #40 → ADOBE Easy
Jul 28, 2021 Wednesday #39 → OUTDO Tricky
Jul 27, 2021 Tuesday #38 → TRAWL Tricky
Jul 26, 2021 Monday #37 → WHELP Hard
Jul 25, 2021 Sunday #36 → UNFED Brutal
Jul 24, 2021 Saturday #35 → PAPER Moderate
Jul 23, 2021 Friday #34 → STAFF Tricky
Jul 22, 2021 Thursday #33 → CROAK Hard
Jul 21, 2021 Wednesday #32 → HELIX Moderate
Jul 20, 2021 Tuesday #31 → FLOSS Tricky
Jul 19, 2021 Monday #30 → PRIDE Easy
Jul 18, 2021 Sunday #29 → BATTY Tricky
Jul 17, 2021 Saturday #28 → REACT Easy
Jul 16, 2021 Friday #27 → MARRY Tricky
Jul 15, 2021 Thursday #26 → ABASE Brutal
Jul 14, 2021 Wednesday #25 → COLON Moderate
Jul 13, 2021 Tuesday #24 → STOOL Moderate
Jul 12, 2021 Monday #23 → CRUST Moderate
Jul 11, 2021 Sunday #22 → FRESH Moderate
Jul 10, 2021 Saturday #21 → DEATH Easy
Jul 9, 2021 Friday #20 → MAJOR Moderate
Jul 8, 2021 Thursday #19 → FEIGN Used 2 times Tricky
Jul 7, 2021 Wednesday #18 → ABATE Tricky
Jul 6, 2021 Tuesday #17 → BENCH Moderate
Jul 5, 2021 Monday #16 → QUIET Moderate
Jul 4, 2021 Sunday #15 → GRADE Used 2 times Easy
Jul 3, 2021 Saturday #14 → STINK Tricky
Jul 2, 2021 Friday #13 → KARMA Tricky
Jul 1, 2021 Thursday #12 → MODEL Easy

On this day in Wordle

Past answers published on September 7 in earlier years. Every puzzle listed here is complete, so this section does not spoil a live game.

  1. 1 year ago
    Easy

    Nothing unusual appears in the letters: all five are distinct and familiar. Ordinary letter coverage works well on words like this.

    Puzzle #1,541 → Word page →

  2. 2 years ago
    Moderate

    Nothing unusual appears in the letters: all five are distinct and familiar. Ordinary letter coverage works well on words like this.

    Puzzle #1,176 → Word page →

  3. 3 years ago
    Hard

    The doubled L raises the difficulty. Once a letter shows up yellow or green, few players try it a second time unprompted.

    Puzzle #810 → Word page →

The Easy-to-Brutal badge combines general-English corpus frequency with repeats, uncommon letters and vowel count. It estimates word difficulty, not player results. Dates come from the site's recorded answer history.

Archive totals

31 Answers
S Most common start (4)
E Most common end (5)
UNFED Highest estimated difficulty

Estimated word difficulty combines wordfreq corpus frequency with repeats, uncommon letters and vowel count. It measures word properties, not player results. Compare solver difficulty →

  • Easy 6
  • Moderate 9
  • Tricky 11
  • Hard 3
  • Brutal 2

From the guides

Keep solving and playing