July 2022 in review

July 2022 is complete, with 31 puzzles and every date recorded. On the site's word-property scale it was an unusually demanding one. The highest estimated difficulty occurred on Jul 22, 2022 and the lowest on Jul 1, 2022; 14 answers doubled a letter and 7 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

TRYST 4.5 pts · Jul 22, 2022 · #398

TRYST contains none of A, E, I, O or U, the largest single letter penalty on the scale. A vowel-heavy opener can therefore spend several positions on absent letters.

Lowest estimated difficulty

PINTO 0 pts · Jul 1, 2022 · #377

PINTO 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, 2022 to 4.5 on Jul 22, 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 unusually demanding month by the estimate. July's 31 answers averaged 1.8 points against 1.2 across the trailing six months, 0.6 points above, outside the normal month-to-month spread of about ±0.3. More answers with low corpus frequency, repeats, uncommon letters or few vowels appeared than usual. The scale combines general-English corpus frequency with repeats, uncommon letters and missing vowels. It measures word properties, not player results.

Letters and patterns

14 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.

7 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 (#378) doubled E; Jul 3 (#379) doubled L; Jul 4 (#380) doubled E; Jul 6 (#382) doubled F; Jul 7 (#383) doubled A; Jul 11 (#387) doubled A and M; Jul 15 (#391) doubled E; Jul 16 (#392) doubled O; Jul 20 (#396) doubled T; Jul 22 (#398) doubled T; Jul 25 (#401) doubled E; Jul 26 (#402) doubled C; Jul 27 (#403) doubled O and T; Jul 30 (#406) doubled F.

Uncommon-letter days: Jul 4 (#380) used V; Jul 8 (#384) used V; Jul 14 (#390) used V; Jul 15 (#391) used W; Jul 17 (#393) used K and W; Jul 18 (#394) used K; Jul 24 (#400) 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, 2022 Sunday #407 → CRAMP Moderate
Jul 30, 2022 Saturday #406 → BLUFF Tricky
Jul 29, 2022 Friday #405 → UPSET Easy
Jul 28, 2022 Thursday #404 → STOMP Moderate
Jul 27, 2022 Wednesday #403 → MOTTO Tricky
Jul 26, 2022 Tuesday #402 → CINCH Tricky
Jul 25, 2022 Monday #401 → ELOPE Tricky
Jul 24, 2022 Sunday #400 → POWER Moderate
Jul 23, 2022 Saturday #399 → MIDGE Tricky
Jul 22, 2022 Friday #398 → TRYST Hard
Jul 21, 2022 Thursday #397 → APHID Hard
Jul 20, 2022 Wednesday #396 → TRITE Tricky
Jul 19, 2022 Tuesday #395 → ANGRY Moderate
Jul 18, 2022 Monday #394 → FLOCK Tricky
Jul 17, 2022 Sunday #393 → WACKY Tricky
Jul 16, 2022 Saturday #392 → ROOMY Tricky
Jul 15, 2022 Friday #391 → WEDGE Tricky
Jul 14, 2022 Thursday #390 → LIVER Moderate
Jul 13, 2022 Wednesday #389 → BLAND Moderate
Jul 12, 2022 Tuesday #388 → NIGHT Moderate
Jul 11, 2022 Monday #387 → MADAM Tricky
Jul 10, 2022 Sunday #386 → BERTH Moderate
Jul 9, 2022 Saturday #385 → STEAD Easy
Jul 8, 2022 Friday #384 → VOICE Moderate
Jul 7, 2022 Thursday #383 → AGAPE Tricky
Jul 6, 2022 Wednesday #382 → FLUFF Hard
Jul 5, 2022 Tuesday #381 → FIELD Easy
Jul 4, 2022 Monday #380 → SEVER Tricky
Jul 3, 2022 Sunday #379 → LILAC Moderate
Jul 2, 2022 Saturday #378 → EGRET Hard
Jul 1, 2022 Friday #377 → PINTO 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
B Most common start (3)
E Most common end (6)
TRYST 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 4
  • Moderate 10
  • Tricky 13
  • Hard 4

From the guides

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