August 2022 in review

August 2022 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 Aug 27, 2022 and the lowest on Aug 3, 2022; 8 answers doubled a letter and 11 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

RUDER 3.5 pts · Aug 27, 2022 · #434

RUDER appears less than once per million words in the corpus-based frequency data, so familiarity alone sets a Hard floor. Its letters add points too, but corpus frequency sets the minimum rating.

Lowest estimated difficulty

YOUTH 0 pts · Aug 3, 2022 · #410

YOUTH 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 Aug 3, 2022 to 3.5 on Aug 27, 2022. 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. August's 31 answers averaged 1.4 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.3 across the trailing six 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.

Letters and patterns

8 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.

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: Aug 2 (#409) doubled Y; Aug 5 (#412) doubled G; Aug 9 (#416) doubled T; Aug 12 (#419) doubled L; Aug 14 (#421) doubled K; Aug 20 (#427) doubled T; Aug 24 (#431) doubled E; Aug 27 (#434) doubled R.

Uncommon-letter days: Aug 1 (#408) used Q; Aug 13 (#420) used K; Aug 14 (#421) used K; Aug 15 (#422) used K; Aug 17 (#424) used W; Aug 18 (#425) used W; Aug 21 (#428) used W; Aug 23 (#430) used V and W; Aug 25 (#432) used W; Aug 28 (#435) used Z; Aug 31 (#438) used Z.

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
Aug 31, 2022 Wednesday #438 → PRIZE Moderate
Aug 30, 2022 Tuesday #437 → ONSET Easy
Aug 29, 2022 Monday #436 → CHIEF Easy
Aug 28, 2022 Sunday #435 → GAUZE Tricky
Aug 27, 2022 Saturday #434 → RUDER Hard
Aug 26, 2022 Friday #433 → IRONY Easy
Aug 25, 2022 Thursday #432 → CLOWN Tricky
Aug 24, 2022 Wednesday #431 → NEEDY Moderate
Aug 23, 2022 Tuesday #430 → WOVEN Tricky
Aug 22, 2022 Monday #429 → MERIT Easy
Aug 21, 2022 Sunday #428 → WASTE Moderate
Aug 20, 2022 Saturday #427 → TREAT Moderate
Aug 19, 2022 Friday #426 → SHRUG Moderate
Aug 18, 2022 Thursday #425 → TWANG Tricky
Aug 17, 2022 Wednesday #424 → TWICE Moderate
Aug 16, 2022 Tuesday #423 → GRUEL Hard
Aug 15, 2022 Monday #422 → POKER Moderate
Aug 14, 2022 Sunday #421 → KHAKI Hard
Aug 13, 2022 Saturday #420 → HUNKY Tricky
Aug 12, 2022 Friday #419 → LABEL Moderate
Aug 11, 2022 Thursday #418 → GLEAN Tricky
Aug 10, 2022 Wednesday #417 → CLING Moderate
Aug 9, 2022 Tuesday #416 → PATTY Tricky
Aug 8, 2022 Monday #415 → UNFIT Easy
Aug 7, 2022 Sunday #414 → SMEAR Easy
Aug 6, 2022 Saturday #413 → ALIEN Easy
Aug 5, 2022 Friday #412 → BUGGY Tricky
Aug 4, 2022 Thursday #411 → RHYME Moderate
Aug 3, 2022 Wednesday #410 → YOUTH Easy
Aug 2, 2022 Tuesday #409 → COYLY Hard
Aug 1, 2022 Monday #408 → QUART Moderate

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
C Most common start (4)
Y Most common end (6)
RUDER 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 8
  • Moderate 11
  • Tricky 8
  • Hard 4

From the guides

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