September 2023 in review

September 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 Sep 30, 2023 and the lowest on Sep 1, 2023; 8 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

Highest estimated difficulty

DADDY 4 pts · Sep 30, 2023 · #833

DADDY repeats D. 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

SPACE 0 pts · Sep 1, 2023 · #804

SPACE 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 Sep 1, 2023 to 4 on Sep 30, 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. September's 30 answers averaged 1.4 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.4 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

8 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.

9 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: Sep 2 (#805) doubled N and O; Sep 3 (#806) doubled A; Sep 4 (#807) doubled D; Sep 7 (#810) doubled L; Sep 15 (#818) doubled E; Sep 26 (#829) doubled L; Sep 28 (#831) doubled C; Sep 30 (#833) doubled D.

Uncommon-letter days: Sep 3 (#806) used W; Sep 7 (#810) used W; Sep 9 (#812) used K; Sep 10 (#813) used Q; Sep 12 (#815) used K and W; Sep 15 (#818) used X; Sep 18 (#821) used K; Sep 25 (#828) used K; Sep 29 (#832) used 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
Sep 30, 2023 Saturday #833 → DADDY Hard
Sep 29, 2023 Friday #832 → AZURE Moderate
Sep 28, 2023 Thursday #831 → COACH Moderate
Sep 27, 2023 Wednesday #830 → SMILE Used 2 times Easy
Sep 26, 2023 Tuesday #829 → LOYAL Moderate
Sep 25, 2023 Monday #828 → ROCKY Tricky
Sep 24, 2023 Sunday #827 → RIGHT Moderate
Sep 23, 2023 Saturday #826 → CAROL Easy
Sep 22, 2023 Friday #825 → BRUSH Moderate
Sep 21, 2023 Thursday #824 → STONE Easy
Sep 20, 2023 Wednesday #823 → SNARE Easy
Sep 19, 2023 Tuesday #822 → CLOSE Easy
Sep 18, 2023 Monday #821 → FRANK Tricky
Sep 17, 2023 Sunday #820 → MUSIC Easy
Sep 16, 2023 Saturday #819 → ANGEL Easy
Sep 15, 2023 Friday #818 → EXERT Tricky
Sep 14, 2023 Thursday #817 → RAYON Tricky
Sep 13, 2023 Wednesday #816 → CLEAR Easy
Sep 12, 2023 Tuesday #815 → WHISK Tricky
Sep 11, 2023 Monday #814 → OLDER Easy
Sep 10, 2023 Sunday #813 → QUOTE Moderate
Sep 9, 2023 Saturday #812 → LUCKY Tricky
Sep 8, 2023 Friday #811 → ROUSE Easy
Sep 7, 2023 Thursday #810 → DWELL Hard
Sep 6, 2023 Wednesday #809 → GNASH Hard
Sep 5, 2023 Tuesday #808 → BIRCH Moderate
Sep 4, 2023 Monday #807 → GIDDY Tricky
Sep 3, 2023 Sunday #806 → AWAIT Tricky
Sep 2, 2023 Saturday #805 → ONION Tricky
Sep 1, 2023 Friday #804 → SPACE Easy

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
C Most common start (4)
E Most common end (8)
DADDY 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 9
  • Hard 3

From the guides

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