5 FiveLetterWords

Past Answers

Wordle Answers: December 2022

Browse all 31 completed answers from December 2022, with a page for each puzzle's definition, difficulty and solver replay.

December 2022 in review

December 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 Dec 10, 2022 and the lowest on Dec 4, 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

KNOCK 4.5 pts · Dec 10, 2022 · #539

KNOCK doubles K, an uncommon letter. The scale's two heaviest penalties land on one letter because ordinary openers rarely probe K at all, let alone twice.

Lowest estimated difficulty

ADORE 0 pts · Dec 4, 2022 · #533

ADORE has five distinct letters, 3 vowels and no uncommon letters. Common first guesses therefore test many of its letters.

The spread ran from 0 points on Dec 4, 2022 to 4.5 on Dec 10, 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. December's 31 answers averaged 1.4 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.5 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: Dec 1 (#530) doubled E; Dec 3 (#532) doubled O; Dec 10 (#539) doubled K; Dec 12 (#541) doubled P; Dec 14 (#543) doubled U; Dec 22 (#551) doubled E; Dec 23 (#552) doubled A; Dec 27 (#556) doubled O.

Uncommon-letter days: Dec 1 (#530) used J; Dec 5 (#534) used K and W; Dec 7 (#536) used J; Dec 10 (#539) used K; Dec 11 (#540) used V; Dec 13 (#542) used K; Dec 15 (#544) used V; Dec 22 (#551) used X; Dec 25 (#554) used X; Dec 26 (#555) used J; Dec 29 (#558) used V.

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
Dec 31, 2022 Saturday #560 → MANLY Moderate
Dec 30, 2022 Friday #559 → MOLAR Tricky
Dec 29, 2022 Thursday #558 → HAVOC Moderate
Dec 28, 2022 Wednesday #557 → IMPEL Hard
Dec 27, 2022 Tuesday #556 → CONDO Moderate
Dec 26, 2022 Monday #555 → JUDGE Moderate
Dec 25, 2022 Sunday #554 → EXTRA Moderate
Dec 24, 2022 Saturday #553 → POISE Easy
Dec 23, 2022 Friday #552 → AORTA Tricky
Dec 22, 2022 Thursday #551 → EXCEL Tricky
Dec 21, 2022 Wednesday #550 → LUNAR Easy
Dec 20, 2022 Tuesday #549 → THIRD Moderate
Dec 19, 2022 Monday #548 → SLATE Easy
Dec 18, 2022 Sunday #547 → TAPER Easy
Dec 17, 2022 Saturday #546 → CHORD Moderate
Dec 16, 2022 Friday #545 → PROBE Easy
Dec 15, 2022 Thursday #544 → RIVAL Moderate
Dec 14, 2022 Wednesday #543 → USUAL Moderate
Dec 13, 2022 Tuesday #542 → SPOKE Moderate
Dec 12, 2022 Monday #541 → APPLY Tricky
Dec 11, 2022 Sunday #540 → NAIVE Moderate
Dec 10, 2022 Saturday #539 → KNOCK Hard
Dec 9, 2022 Friday #538 → BRAID Easy
Dec 8, 2022 Thursday #537 → INFER Easy
Dec 7, 2022 Wednesday #536 → JOUST Hard
Dec 6, 2022 Tuesday #535 → AMBER Easy
Dec 5, 2022 Monday #534 → WOKEN Tricky
Dec 4, 2022 Sunday #533 → ADORE Easy
Dec 3, 2022 Saturday #532 → TORSO Moderate
Dec 2, 2022 Friday #531 → CHAFE Hard
Dec 1, 2022 Thursday #530 → EJECT Tricky

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
A Most common start (4)
E Most common end (8)
KNOCK 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 9
  • Moderate 12
  • Tricky 6
  • Hard 4

From the guides

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