December 2024 in review

December 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 Dec 5, 2024 and the lowest on Dec 10, 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

ENDOW 3.5 pts · Dec 5, 2024 · #1,265

ENDOW 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

PATIO 0 pts · Dec 10, 2024 · #1,270

PATIO has five distinct letters, 3 vowels and no uncommon letters. Common first guesses therefore test many of its letters.

The spread ran from 0 points on Dec 10, 2024 to 3.5 on Dec 5, 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. December's 31 answers averaged 1.5 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

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.

10 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: Dec 7 (#1,267) doubled L; Dec 14 (#1,274) doubled O; Dec 23 (#1,283) doubled A; Dec 24 (#1,284) doubled E; Dec 26 (#1,286) doubled F; Dec 29 (#1,289) doubled M.

Uncommon-letter days: Dec 1 (#1,261) used V; Dec 3 (#1,263) used K; Dec 5 (#1,265) used W; Dec 6 (#1,266) used V; Dec 12 (#1,272) used V; Dec 13 (#1,273) used X; Dec 15 (#1,275) used K; Dec 17 (#1,277) used W; Dec 22 (#1,282) used W; Dec 26 (#1,286) used X.

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
Dec 31, 2024 Tuesday #1,291 → LEMUR Tricky
Dec 30, 2024 Monday #1,290 → STARE Easy
Dec 29, 2024 Sunday #1,289 → MAMBO Tricky
Dec 28, 2024 Saturday #1,288 → DECRY Tricky
Dec 27, 2024 Friday #1,287 → GRAIN Easy
Dec 26, 2024 Thursday #1,286 → AFFIX Tricky
Dec 25, 2024 Wednesday #1,285 → SHARE Easy
Dec 24, 2024 Tuesday #1,284 → EAGLE Moderate
Dec 23, 2024 Monday #1,283 → SAUNA Moderate
Dec 22, 2024 Sunday #1,282 → BRAWN Tricky
Dec 21, 2024 Saturday #1,281 → BLADE Easy
Dec 20, 2024 Friday #1,280 → FLASH Moderate
Dec 19, 2024 Thursday #1,279 → STRAY Moderate
Dec 18, 2024 Wednesday #1,278 → HEFTY Moderate
Dec 17, 2024 Tuesday #1,277 → SCOWL Tricky
Dec 16, 2024 Monday #1,276 → BOAST Easy
Dec 15, 2024 Sunday #1,275 → FUNKY Tricky
Dec 14, 2024 Saturday #1,274 → DROOL Moderate
Dec 13, 2024 Friday #1,273 → BOXER Moderate
Dec 12, 2024 Thursday #1,272 → VYING Tricky
Dec 11, 2024 Wednesday #1,271 → PLUMB Tricky
Dec 10, 2024 Tuesday #1,270 → PATIO Easy
Dec 9, 2024 Monday #1,269 → FLUNG Moderate
Dec 8, 2024 Sunday #1,268 → HYENA Tricky
Dec 7, 2024 Saturday #1,267 → HILLY Tricky
Dec 6, 2024 Friday #1,266 → SHOVE Moderate
Dec 5, 2024 Thursday #1,265 → ENDOW Hard
Dec 4, 2024 Wednesday #1,264 → CRYPT Tricky
Dec 3, 2024 Tuesday #1,263 → SHAKY Tricky
Dec 2, 2024 Monday #1,262 → GUILE Tricky
Dec 1, 2024 Sunday #1,261 → MAUVE 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 (7)
E Most common end (7)
ENDOW 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 15
  • Hard 1

From the guides

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