October 2022 in review

October 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 Oct 23, 2022 and the lowest on Oct 16, 2022; 9 answers doubled a letter and 12 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

MUMMY 4 pts · Oct 23, 2022 · #491

MUMMY repeats M. A no-repeat strategy is slow to test the second copy, and the scale weighs each duplicate more heavily than any other single feature.

Lowest estimated difficulty

SPADE 0 pts · Oct 16, 2022 · #484

SPADE 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 16, 2022 to 4 on Oct 23, 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. October's 31 answers averaged 1.6 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.4 across the trailing six months, and a gap of 0.2 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

9 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.

12 of 31 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W, above 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 1 (#469) doubled E; Oct 7 (#475) doubled D; Oct 12 (#480) doubled I; Oct 14 (#482) doubled O; Oct 15 (#483) doubled C; Oct 23 (#491) doubled M; Oct 25 (#493) doubled G; Oct 27 (#495) doubled R; Oct 29 (#497) doubled L.

Uncommon-letter days: Oct 1 (#469) used V; Oct 2 (#470) used W; Oct 8 (#476) used V; Oct 9 (#477) used W; Oct 10 (#478) used J; Oct 11 (#479) used V; Oct 13 (#481) used Q; Oct 18 (#486) used X; Oct 19 (#487) used K and Q; Oct 21 (#489) used V; Oct 28 (#496) used K; Oct 30 (#498) used W and 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
Oct 31, 2022 Monday #499 → APTLY Moderate
Oct 30, 2022 Sunday #498 → WALTZ Tricky
Oct 29, 2022 Saturday #497 → LIBEL Moderate
Oct 28, 2022 Friday #496 → SNEAK Moderate
Oct 27, 2022 Thursday #495 → CARRY Tricky
Oct 26, 2022 Wednesday #494 → FLOUT Hard
Oct 25, 2022 Tuesday #493 → FOGGY Tricky
Oct 24, 2022 Monday #492 → FAULT Easy
Oct 23, 2022 Sunday #491 → MUMMY Hard
Oct 22, 2022 Saturday #490 → SPIEL Tricky
Oct 21, 2022 Friday #489 → GROVE Moderate
Oct 20, 2022 Thursday #488 → DENIM Easy
Oct 19, 2022 Wednesday #487 → QUIRK Tricky
Oct 18, 2022 Tuesday #486 → EXIST Moderate
Oct 17, 2022 Monday #485 → STEIN Easy
Oct 16, 2022 Sunday #484 → SPADE Easy
Oct 15, 2022 Saturday #483 → CATCH Tricky
Oct 14, 2022 Friday #482 → FLOOR Moderate
Oct 13, 2022 Thursday #481 → EQUAL Moderate
Oct 12, 2022 Wednesday #480 → IONIC Moderate
Oct 11, 2022 Tuesday #479 → VALID Moderate
Oct 10, 2022 Monday #478 → ENJOY Moderate
Oct 9, 2022 Sunday #477 → HOWDY Tricky
Oct 8, 2022 Saturday #476 → VIGOR Moderate
Oct 7, 2022 Friday #475 → DANDY Tricky
Oct 6, 2022 Thursday #474 → SLOTH Moderate
Oct 5, 2022 Wednesday #473 → MARSH Moderate
Oct 4, 2022 Tuesday #472 → BOUGH Tricky
Oct 3, 2022 Monday #471 → STING Moderate
Oct 2, 2022 Sunday #470 → TWINE Tricky
Oct 1, 2022 Saturday #469 → LEAVE 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
S Most common start (6)
Y Most common end (7)
MUMMY 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 14
  • Tricky 11
  • Hard 2

From the guides

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