April 2024 in review

April 2024 is complete, with 30 puzzles and every date recorded. On the site's word-property scale it was an unusually demanding one. The highest estimated difficulty occurred on Apr 21, 2024 and the lowest on Apr 2, 2024; 6 answers doubled a letter and 10 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

JOLLY 3.5 pts · Apr 21, 2024 · #1,037

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

Lowest estimated difficulty

SERUM 0 pts · Apr 2, 2024 · #1,018

SERUM 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 Apr 2, 2024 to 3.5 on Apr 21, 2024. 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 demanding month by the estimate. April's 30 answers averaged 1.5 points against 1.1 across the trailing six months, 0.5 points above, outside the normal month-to-month spread of about ±0.3. More 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

6 of 30 answers doubled a letter, below the long-run archive rate of about 31%. Fewer than usual, so plain no-repeat guessing went largely unpunished.

10 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: Apr 8 (#1,024) doubled E; Apr 9 (#1,025) doubled E; Apr 13 (#1,029) doubled E; Apr 17 (#1,033) doubled T; Apr 21 (#1,037) doubled L; Apr 23 (#1,039) doubled R.

Uncommon-letter days: Apr 5 (#1,021) used W; Apr 7 (#1,023) used V; Apr 12 (#1,028) used W; Apr 15 (#1,031) used Q; Apr 16 (#1,032) used K; Apr 21 (#1,037) used J; Apr 23 (#1,039) used V; Apr 24 (#1,040) used V; Apr 26 (#1,042) used V; Apr 30 (#1,046) 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
Apr 30, 2024 Tuesday #1,046 → PROWL Tricky
Apr 29, 2024 Monday #1,045 → CRAFT Moderate
Apr 28, 2024 Sunday #1,044 → PRUNE Tricky
Apr 27, 2024 Saturday #1,043 → GLEAM Tricky
Apr 26, 2024 Friday #1,042 → VAPID Tricky
Apr 25, 2024 Thursday #1,041 → INTRO Easy
Apr 24, 2024 Wednesday #1,040 → OVERT Moderate
Apr 23, 2024 Tuesday #1,039 → ROVER Tricky
Apr 22, 2024 Monday #1,038 → LASER Easy
Apr 21, 2024 Sunday #1,037 → JOLLY Hard
Apr 20, 2024 Saturday #1,036 → LUCID Easy
Apr 19, 2024 Friday #1,035 → RAISE Easy
Apr 18, 2024 Thursday #1,034 → FACET Easy
Apr 17, 2024 Wednesday #1,033 → TITHE Tricky
Apr 16, 2024 Tuesday #1,032 → SHANK Tricky
Apr 15, 2024 Monday #1,031 → EQUIP Moderate
Apr 14, 2024 Sunday #1,030 → BLIMP Tricky
Apr 13, 2024 Saturday #1,029 → STEEL Moderate
Apr 12, 2024 Friday #1,028 → WHINY Tricky
Apr 11, 2024 Thursday #1,027 → LOUSE Tricky
Apr 10, 2024 Wednesday #1,026 → BROTH Moderate
Apr 9, 2024 Tuesday #1,025 → MERGE Moderate
Apr 8, 2024 Monday #1,024 → BREED Moderate
Apr 7, 2024 Sunday #1,023 → VOILA Tricky
Apr 6, 2024 Saturday #1,022 → FINCH Moderate
Apr 5, 2024 Friday #1,021 → WRIST Tricky
Apr 4, 2024 Thursday #1,020 → CLIMB Moderate
Apr 3, 2024 Wednesday #1,019 → PLAIT Hard
Apr 2, 2024 Tuesday #1,018 → SERUM Easy
Apr 1, 2024 Monday #1,017 → FROND Hard

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
P Most common start (3)
T Most common end (5)
JOLLY 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 6
  • Moderate 9
  • Tricky 12
  • Hard 3

From the guides

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