June 2023 in review

June 2023 is complete, with 30 puzzles and every date recorded. On the site's word-property scale it was an ordinary month. The highest estimated difficulty occurred on Jun 1, 2023 and the lowest on Jun 2, 2023; 10 answers doubled a letter and 6 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

JAZZY 5.5 pts · Jun 1, 2023 · #712

JAZZY combines the scale's two heaviest penalties: it repeats Z and contains uncommon J and Z, which ordinary opening guesses rarely test.

Lowest estimated difficulty

HUMID 0 pts · Jun 2, 2023 · #713

HUMID 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 Jun 2, 2023 to 5.5 on Jun 1, 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 ordinary month. June's 30 answers averaged 1.6 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

10 of 30 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.

6 of 30 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: Jun 1 (#712) doubled Z; Jun 3 (#714) doubled N; Jun 5 (#716) doubled N; Jun 9 (#720) doubled A; Jun 10 (#721) doubled A; Jun 18 (#729) doubled Y; Jun 19 (#730) doubled O; Jun 22 (#733) doubled T; Jun 25 (#736) doubled O; Jun 28 (#739) doubled T.

Uncommon-letter days: Jun 1 (#712) used J and Z; Jun 12 (#723) used W; Jun 13 (#724) used K; Jun 19 (#730) used K and Z; Jun 23 (#734) used V; Jun 30 (#741) 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
Jun 30, 2023 Friday #741 → STRAW Tricky
Jun 29, 2023 Thursday #740 → DINER Easy
Jun 28, 2023 Wednesday #739 → TRACT Tricky
Jun 27, 2023 Tuesday #738 → ABOUT Easy
Jun 26, 2023 Monday #737 → GUEST Easy
Jun 25, 2023 Sunday #736 → RODEO Moderate
Jun 24, 2023 Saturday #735 → GRAND Moderate
Jun 23, 2023 Friday #734 → COVET Tricky
Jun 22, 2023 Thursday #733 → TASTE Moderate
Jun 21, 2023 Wednesday #732 → CRANE Easy
Jun 20, 2023 Tuesday #731 → FROST Moderate
Jun 19, 2023 Monday #730 → KAZOO Hard
Jun 18, 2023 Sunday #729 → SHYLY Hard
Jun 17, 2023 Saturday #728 → RANCH Moderate
Jun 16, 2023 Friday #727 → STRAP Moderate
Jun 15, 2023 Thursday #726 → MAYBE Easy
Jun 14, 2023 Wednesday #725 → CRIME Easy
Jun 13, 2023 Tuesday #724 → PLUNK Hard
Jun 12, 2023 Monday #723 → WRONG Tricky
Jun 11, 2023 Sunday #722 → GUARD Easy
Jun 10, 2023 Saturday #721 → AGAIN Moderate
Jun 9, 2023 Friday #720 → BALSA Hard
Jun 8, 2023 Thursday #719 → CRUMB Tricky
Jun 7, 2023 Wednesday #718 → HATER Easy
Jun 6, 2023 Tuesday #717 → SCOUT Easy
Jun 5, 2023 Monday #716 → ENNUI Hard
Jun 4, 2023 Sunday #715 → BEAST Easy
Jun 3, 2023 Saturday #714 → NANNY Hard
Jun 2, 2023 Friday #713 → HUMID Easy
Jun 1, 2023 Thursday #712 → JAZZY Brutal

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

30 Answers
S Most common start (4)
T Most common end (7)
JAZZY 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 11
  • Moderate 7
  • Tricky 5
  • Hard 6
  • Brutal 1

From the guides

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