August 2024 in review

August 2024 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 Aug 29, 2024 and the lowest on Aug 3, 2024; 5 answers doubled a letter and 12 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

FLUNK 3.5 pts · Aug 29, 2024 · #1,167

FLUNK appears less than once per million words in the corpus-based frequency data, so familiarity alone sets a Hard floor. Its letters add points too, but corpus frequency sets the minimum rating.

Lowest estimated difficulty

SCALE 0 pts · Aug 3, 2024 · #1,141

SCALE 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 Aug 3, 2024 to 3.5 on Aug 29, 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 ordinary month. August's 31 answers averaged 1.4 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.3 across the trailing six months, and a gap of 0.2 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

5 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.

12 of 31 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W, above 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: Aug 5 (#1,143) doubled E; Aug 7 (#1,145) doubled A; Aug 12 (#1,150) doubled F; Aug 19 (#1,157) doubled E; Aug 23 (#1,161) doubled E.

Uncommon-letter days: Aug 1 (#1,139) used K; Aug 2 (#1,140) used K; Aug 4 (#1,142) used W; Aug 6 (#1,144) used V; Aug 7 (#1,145) used W; Aug 12 (#1,150) used K; Aug 18 (#1,156) used K; Aug 25 (#1,163) used K; Aug 26 (#1,164) used K; Aug 27 (#1,165) used W; Aug 29 (#1,167) used K; Aug 30 (#1,168) used K and 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
Aug 31, 2024 Saturday #1,169 → SPOUT Easy
Aug 30, 2024 Friday #1,168 → KNAVE Tricky
Aug 29, 2024 Thursday #1,167 → FLUNK Hard
Aug 28, 2024 Wednesday #1,166 → LITHE Hard
Aug 27, 2024 Tuesday #1,165 → CROWN Tricky
Aug 26, 2024 Monday #1,164 → STAKE Moderate
Aug 25, 2024 Sunday #1,163 → SKATE Moderate
Aug 24, 2024 Saturday #1,162 → FILET Tricky
Aug 23, 2024 Friday #1,161 → LEECH Moderate
Aug 22, 2024 Thursday #1,160 → BRUTE Easy
Aug 21, 2024 Wednesday #1,159 → MULCH Tricky
Aug 20, 2024 Tuesday #1,158 → DELAY Easy
Aug 19, 2024 Monday #1,157 → METER Moderate
Aug 18, 2024 Sunday #1,156 → LANKY Tricky
Aug 17, 2024 Saturday #1,155 → STORM Moderate
Aug 16, 2024 Friday #1,154 → BRACE Easy
Aug 15, 2024 Thursday #1,153 → ACORN Easy
Aug 14, 2024 Wednesday #1,152 → SHORE Easy
Aug 13, 2024 Tuesday #1,151 → NEIGH Hard
Aug 12, 2024 Monday #1,150 → SKIFF Hard
Aug 11, 2024 Sunday #1,149 → SCONE Tricky
Aug 10, 2024 Saturday #1,148 → MEDIC Easy
Aug 9, 2024 Friday #1,147 → OUNCE Easy
Aug 8, 2024 Thursday #1,146 → SAUCY Tricky
Aug 7, 2024 Wednesday #1,145 → MACAW Hard
Aug 6, 2024 Tuesday #1,144 → ANVIL Moderate
Aug 5, 2024 Monday #1,143 → ENSUE Tricky
Aug 4, 2024 Sunday #1,142 → LOWER Moderate
Aug 3, 2024 Saturday #1,141 → SCALE Easy
Aug 2, 2024 Friday #1,140 → FLAKE Moderate
Aug 1, 2024 Thursday #1,139 → CHALK 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.

  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
S Most common start (9)
E Most common end (12)
FLUNK 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 9
  • Moderate 8
  • Tricky 9
  • Hard 5

From the guides

Keep solving and playing