March 2023 in review

March 2023 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 Mar 17, 2023 and the lowest on Mar 7, 2023; 7 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

MEALY 3.5 pts · Mar 17, 2023 · #636

MEALY appears less than once per million words in the corpus-based frequency data, so familiarity alone sets a Hard floor. Its five distinct letters include at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

Lowest estimated difficulty

HORSE 0 pts · Mar 7, 2023 · #626

HORSE 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 Mar 7, 2023 to 3.5 on Mar 17, 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. March's 31 answers averaged 1.4 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.4 across the trailing six months, and a gap of less than 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

7 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: Mar 1 (#620) doubled O; Mar 9 (#628) doubled E; Mar 10 (#629) doubled E; Mar 15 (#634) doubled E; Mar 28 (#647) doubled R; Mar 29 (#648) doubled E; Mar 31 (#650) doubled E.

Uncommon-letter days: Mar 2 (#621) used V; Mar 3 (#622) used Q; Mar 5 (#624) used X; Mar 6 (#625) used K; Mar 9 (#628) used W; Mar 10 (#629) used V; Mar 15 (#634) used W; Mar 20 (#639) used V; Mar 22 (#641) used V; Mar 25 (#644) used V; Mar 31 (#650) 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
Mar 31, 2023 Friday #650 → EVERY Tricky
Mar 30, 2023 Thursday #649 → BREAD Easy
Mar 29, 2023 Wednesday #648 → BESET Moderate
Mar 28, 2023 Tuesday #647 → HURRY Tricky
Mar 27, 2023 Monday #646 → GUANO Tricky
Mar 26, 2023 Sunday #645 → UNTIE Tricky
Mar 25, 2023 Saturday #644 → VOTER Moderate
Mar 24, 2023 Friday #643 → GROUT Tricky
Mar 23, 2023 Thursday #642 → STAID Tricky
Mar 22, 2023 Wednesday #641 → DUVET Tricky
Mar 21, 2023 Tuesday #640 → TOUGH Easy
Mar 20, 2023 Monday #639 → GLOVE Moderate
Mar 19, 2023 Sunday #638 → CREDO Tricky
Mar 18, 2023 Saturday #637 → YACHT Moderate
Mar 17, 2023 Friday #636 → MEALY Hard
Mar 16, 2023 Thursday #635 → CIDER Easy
Mar 15, 2023 Wednesday #634 → SWEEP Tricky
Mar 14, 2023 Tuesday #633 → SURLY Tricky
Mar 13, 2023 Monday #632 → BLAME Easy
Mar 12, 2023 Sunday #631 → BIRTH Moderate
Mar 11, 2023 Saturday #630 → EMAIL Easy
Mar 10, 2023 Friday #629 → REVEL Tricky
Mar 9, 2023 Thursday #628 → WHERE Tricky
Mar 8, 2023 Wednesday #627 → REGAL Easy
Mar 7, 2023 Tuesday #626 → HORSE Easy
Mar 6, 2023 Monday #625 → PINKY Tricky
Mar 5, 2023 Sunday #624 → TOXIC Moderate
Mar 4, 2023 Saturday #623 → TREND Moderate
Mar 3, 2023 Friday #622 → SQUAT Moderate
Mar 2, 2023 Thursday #621 → ABOVE Moderate
Mar 1, 2023 Wednesday #620 → MOOSE 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
B Most common start (4)
E Most common end (7)
MEALY 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 7
  • Moderate 10
  • Tricky 13
  • Hard 1

From the guides

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