Highest estimated difficulty
SKUNK doubles K, an uncommon letter. The scale's two heaviest penalties land on one letter because ordinary openers rarely probe K at all, let alone twice.
Past Answers
Wordle Answers: October 2023
Browse all 31 completed answers from October 2023, with a page for each puzzle's definition, difficulty and solver replay.
October 2023 in review
October 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 Oct 11, 2023 and the lowest on Oct 6, 2023; 6 answers doubled a letter and 9 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.
The hardest and easiest answers
Lowest estimated difficulty
CHIME 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 6, 2023 to 4.5 on Oct 11, 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. October's 31 answers averaged 1.1 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.4 across the trailing six months, and a gap of 0.3 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
6 of 31 answers doubled a letter, below the long-run archive rate of about 31%. Fewer than usual, so plain no-repeat guessing went largely unpunished.
9 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: Oct 1 (#834) doubled E; Oct 2 (#835) doubled R; Oct 9 (#842) doubled T; Oct 11 (#844) doubled K; Oct 20 (#853) doubled C; Oct 25 (#858) doubled R.
Uncommon-letter days: Oct 3 (#836) used W; Oct 7 (#840) used V; Oct 11 (#844) used K; Oct 12 (#845) used K; Oct 15 (#848) used K; Oct 21 (#854) used K; Oct 22 (#855) used V; Oct 26 (#859) used Q; Oct 31 (#864) used K.
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.
| Date | Day | Puzzle | Answer | Word difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 31, 2023 | Tuesday | #864 → | BLEAK | Moderate |
| Oct 30, 2023 | Monday | #863 → | GRAIL | Easy |
| Oct 29, 2023 | Sunday | #862 → | PHONY | Moderate |
| Oct 28, 2023 | Saturday | #861 → | MASON | Easy |
| Oct 27, 2023 | Friday | #860 → | NOBLE | Easy |
| Oct 26, 2023 | Thursday | #859 → | PIQUE | Tricky |
| Oct 25, 2023 | Wednesday | #858 → | RETRY | Tricky |
| Oct 24, 2023 | Tuesday | #857 → | CAUSE | Easy |
| Oct 23, 2023 | Monday | #856 → | TEMPO | Easy |
| Oct 22, 2023 | Sunday | #855 → | GIVEN | Moderate |
| Oct 21, 2023 | Saturday | #854 → | SMIRK | Tricky |
| Oct 20, 2023 | Friday | #853 → | OCCUR | Moderate |
| Oct 19, 2023 | Thursday | #852 → | SPLAT | Tricky |
| Oct 18, 2023 | Wednesday | #851 → | MERCY | Moderate |
| Oct 17, 2023 | Tuesday | #850 → | ADULT | Easy |
| Oct 16, 2023 | Monday | #849 → | GRAPH | Moderate |
| Oct 15, 2023 | Sunday | #848 → | LEAKY | Moderate |
| Oct 14, 2023 | Saturday | #847 → | AGENT | Easy |
| Oct 13, 2023 | Friday | #846 → | UNCLE | Easy |
| Oct 12, 2023 | Thursday | #845 → | KNELT | Tricky |
| Oct 11, 2023 | Wednesday | #844 → | SKUNK | Hard |
| Oct 10, 2023 | Tuesday | #843 → | SNAIL | Easy |
| Oct 9, 2023 | Monday | #842 → | TRUTH | Tricky |
| Oct 8, 2023 | Sunday | #841 → | BINGE | Easy |
| Oct 7, 2023 | Saturday | #840 → | VIOLA | Moderate |
| Oct 6, 2023 | Friday | #839 → | CHIME | Easy |
| Oct 5, 2023 | Thursday | #838 → | BUNCH | Moderate |
| Oct 4, 2023 | Wednesday | #837 → | SPURT | Tricky |
| Oct 3, 2023 | Tuesday | #836 → | WHILE | Moderate |
| Oct 2, 2023 | Monday | #835 → | MERRY | Tricky |
| Oct 1, 2023 | Sunday | #834 → | BERET | 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.
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1 year ago
Nothing unusual appears in the letters: all five are distinct and familiar. Ordinary letter coverage works well on words like this.
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2 years ago
Nothing unusual appears in the letters: all five are distinct and familiar. Ordinary letter coverage works well on words like this.
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3 years ago
The doubled L raises the difficulty. Once a letter shows up yellow or green, few players try it a second time unprompted.
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
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 10
- Tricky 9
- Hard 1