Highest estimated difficulty
CLICK combines the scale's two heaviest penalties: it repeats C and contains uncommon K, which ordinary opening guesses rarely test.
See its meaning, Wordle status and opener stats.
Past Answers
Browse all 31 completed answers from October 2021, with a page for each puzzle's definition, difficulty and solver replay.
October 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 Oct 31, 2021 and the lowest on Oct 6, 2021; 13 answers doubled a letter and 11 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.
Highest estimated difficulty
CLICK combines the scale's two heaviest penalties: it repeats C and contains uncommon K, which ordinary opening guesses rarely test.
Lowest estimated difficulty
GUILD 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 Oct 6, 2021 to 3.5 on Oct 31, 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.
An ordinary month. October's 31 answers averaged 1.6 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.7 across the trailing four months, and a gap of 0.1 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.
13 of 31 answers doubled a letter, above the long-run archive rate of about 31%. That is the pattern that punishes never-repeat guessing: on a stalled board, testing a doubled letter should have come earlier than usual.
11 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: Oct 2 (#105) doubled S; Oct 5 (#108) doubled B; Oct 7 (#110) doubled A; Oct 8 (#111) doubled O; Oct 10 (#113) doubled H; Oct 18 (#121) doubled E; Oct 21 (#124) doubled E; Oct 22 (#125) doubled E; Oct 23 (#126) doubled S; Oct 27 (#130) doubled O; Oct 28 (#131) doubled E; Oct 30 (#133) doubled G; Oct 31 (#134) doubled C.
Uncommon-letter days: Oct 3 (#106) used J; Oct 5 (#108) used K; Oct 7 (#110) used K; Oct 13 (#116) used W; Oct 18 (#121) used W; Oct 20 (#123) used J; Oct 24 (#127) used W; Oct 26 (#129) used Z; Oct 27 (#130) used Z; Oct 29 (#132) used W; Oct 31 (#134) used K.
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.
| Date | Day | Puzzle | Answer | Word difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 31, 2021 | Sunday | #134 → | CLICK Used 2 times | Hard |
| Oct 30, 2021 | Saturday | #133 → | GOUGE | Tricky |
| Oct 29, 2021 | Friday | #132 → | WORLD | Tricky |
| Oct 28, 2021 | Thursday | #131 → | ERODE | Moderate |
| Oct 27, 2021 | Wednesday | #130 → | BOOZY | Tricky |
| Oct 26, 2021 | Tuesday | #129 → | DOZEN | Moderate |
| Oct 25, 2021 | Monday | #128 → | FLING | Moderate |
| Oct 24, 2021 | Sunday | #127 → | GROWL | Tricky |
| Oct 23, 2021 | Saturday | #126 → | ABYSS | Tricky |
| Oct 22, 2021 | Friday | #125 → | STEED | Tricky |
| Oct 21, 2021 | Thursday | #124 → | ENEMA | Tricky |
| Oct 20, 2021 | Wednesday | #123 → | JAUNT | Tricky |
| Oct 19, 2021 | Tuesday | #122 → | COMET Used 2 times | Easy |
| Oct 18, 2021 | Monday | #121 → | TWEED | Tricky |
| Oct 17, 2021 | Sunday | #120 → | PILOT | Easy |
| Oct 16, 2021 | Saturday | #119 → | DUTCH | Moderate |
| Oct 15, 2021 | Friday | #118 → | BELCH | Hard |
| Oct 14, 2021 | Thursday | #117 → | OUGHT | Easy |
| Oct 13, 2021 | Wednesday | #116 → | DOWRY | Tricky |
| Oct 12, 2021 | Tuesday | #115 → | THUMB Used 2 times | Moderate |
| Oct 11, 2021 | Monday | #114 → | HYPER | Moderate |
| Oct 10, 2021 | Sunday | #113 → | HATCH | Tricky |
| Oct 9, 2021 | Saturday | #112 → | ALONE | Easy |
| Oct 8, 2021 | Friday | #111 → | MOTOR | Moderate |
| Oct 7, 2021 | Thursday | #110 → | ABACK | Tricky |
| Oct 6, 2021 | Wednesday | #109 → | GUILD | Easy |
| Oct 5, 2021 | Tuesday | #108 → | KEBAB | Tricky |
| Oct 4, 2021 | Monday | #107 → | SPEND | Moderate |
| Oct 3, 2021 | Sunday | #106 → | FJORD | Tricky |
| Oct 2, 2021 | Saturday | #105 → | ESSAY | Moderate |
| Oct 1, 2021 | Friday | #104 → | SPRAY | Moderate |
Past answers published on September 7 in earlier years. Every puzzle listed here is complete, so this section does not spoil a live game.
Nothing unusual appears in the letters: all five are distinct and familiar. Ordinary letter coverage works well on words like this.
Nothing unusual appears in the letters: all five are distinct and familiar. Ordinary letter coverage works well on words like this.
The doubled L raises the difficulty. Once a letter shows up yellow or green, few players try it a second time unprompted.
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.
Estimated word difficulty combines wordfreq corpus frequency with repeats, uncommon letters and vowel count. It measures word properties, not player results. Compare solver difficulty →