5 FiveLetterWords

Past Answers

Wordle Answers: December 2023

Browse all 31 completed answers from December 2023, with a page for each puzzle's definition, difficulty and solver replay.

December 2023 in review

December 2023 is complete, with 31 puzzles and every date recorded. On the site's word-property scale it was an unusually gentle one. The highest estimated difficulty occurred on Dec 25, 2023 and the lowest on Dec 5, 2023; 8 answers doubled a letter and 5 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

EVOKE 3.5 pts · Dec 25, 2023 · #919

EVOKE combines the scale's two heaviest penalties: it repeats E and contains uncommon K and V, which ordinary opening guesses rarely test.

Lowest estimated difficulty

YOUNG 0 pts · Dec 5, 2023 · #899

YOUNG 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 Dec 5, 2023 to 3.5 on Dec 25, 2023. 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 gentle month by the estimate. December's 31 answers averaged 0.8 points against 1.4 across the trailing six months, 0.5 points below, outside the normal month-to-month spread of about ±0.3. Fewer 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

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.

5 of 31 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W, below 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 2 (#896) doubled E; Dec 3 (#897) doubled A; Dec 7 (#901) doubled E; Dec 12 (#906) doubled E; Dec 18 (#912) doubled N; Dec 20 (#914) doubled L; Dec 25 (#919) doubled E; Dec 30 (#924) doubled E.

Uncommon-letter days: Dec 1 (#895) used K; Dec 4 (#898) used W; Dec 6 (#900) used W; Dec 14 (#908) used W; Dec 25 (#919) used K and 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, 2023 Sunday #925 → SALTY Moderate
Dec 30, 2023 Saturday #924 → THREE Moderate
Dec 29, 2023 Friday #923 → CHILD Moderate
Dec 28, 2023 Thursday #922 → LEARN Easy
Dec 27, 2023 Wednesday #921 → DAISY Easy
Dec 26, 2023 Tuesday #920 → PHONE Easy
Dec 25, 2023 Monday #919 → EVOKE Hard
Dec 24, 2023 Sunday #918 → GRACE Easy
Dec 23, 2023 Saturday #917 → SLOPE Easy
Dec 22, 2023 Friday #916 → TOUCH Easy
Dec 21, 2023 Thursday #915 → BUILT Easy
Dec 20, 2023 Wednesday #914 → SMALL Tricky
Dec 19, 2023 Tuesday #913 → TABLE Easy
Dec 18, 2023 Monday #912 → FUNNY Tricky
Dec 17, 2023 Sunday #911 → BACON Easy
Dec 16, 2023 Saturday #910 → GLOBE Easy
Dec 15, 2023 Friday #909 → TOPIC Easy
Dec 14, 2023 Thursday #908 → WOULD Moderate
Dec 13, 2023 Wednesday #907 → SPENT Moderate
Dec 12, 2023 Tuesday #906 → THESE Moderate
Dec 11, 2023 Monday #905 → HOUSE Easy
Dec 10, 2023 Sunday #904 → CHAIN Easy
Dec 9, 2023 Saturday #903 → SHIFT Moderate
Dec 8, 2023 Friday #902 → SHARP Moderate
Dec 7, 2023 Thursday #901 → SLEEP Moderate
Dec 6, 2023 Wednesday #900 → WOMAN Moderate
Dec 5, 2023 Tuesday #899 → YOUNG Easy
Dec 4, 2023 Monday #898 → WORST Tricky
Dec 3, 2023 Sunday #897 → ADAPT Moderate
Dec 2, 2023 Saturday #896 → GENRE Moderate
Dec 1, 2023 Friday #895 → TAKEN 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
S Most common start (7)
E Most common end (10)
EVOKE 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 14
  • Moderate 13
  • Tricky 3
  • Hard 1

From the guides

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